Once a great civilization ahead of its time, Ancient Egypt and its leaders controlled the Mediterranean through influence and military conquests. Spanning more than thirty centuries from 3200 BC to the fall of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 30 BC, Egypt was home to some of the most incredible art and architecture in the world. In addition, artifacts inscribed with hieroglyphs have been continually recovered from archaeological sites uncovering information about Ancient Egypt even now. Although hieroglyphs are not a new discovery, few have been able to decipher the writings because of its extremely complex language. The ancient writing system totals over one thousand unique characters which range from logographic, syllabic, and alphabetical symbols. In this paper, I will outline the timeline of hieroglyphs and why it is not in circulation today, the difficulty of deciphering and understanding the writing, and comment on well-known works of art which include hieroglyphs. Although many ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs have been uncovered, this age-old art form is one of the great mysteries in the world to this day.
While the first hieroglyphic writing in Egypt was developed in 3200 BC, it wasn’t until 1822 CE when Jean-Francois Champollion became the first person to decipher hieroglyphs. The earliest known hieroglyphic writing dates back to the Early Dynastic period in Egypt around the dates of 3100 BC to 2686 BC when the former King Menes founded Memphis, known as the capital of Ancient Egypt. One of the most recognizable hieroglyphs found in that time period is known as the Narmer Palette (See Figure 1). As one of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions found, the tablet is thought by many to depict the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under King Narmer’s rule. Located on the tablet includes the king wearing the Hedjet, the White Crown depicting Upper Egypt, and on the other side of the tablet shows the king wearing the Deshret, the Red Crown depicting Lower Egypt. Despite the tablet being a great representation of early hieroglyphics, it was not until 27th century BC that the first example of full sentences written were discovered. The hieroglyphs found which provide complete sentences were found in the tomb of Seth-Paribsen, an Egyptian monarch who ruled during the Second Dynasty of Egypt. A stone vase found in the tomb (See Figure 2) includes the monarch’s name in syllabic characters divided as follows: pr-jb-sn, transcribed to “Paribsen”. Although there were strides in developing hieroglyphics since the beginning of the Egyptian civilization, the most influential period was most likely around the time of the First Dynasty, or 30th century BC, when papyrus appeared and later became the primary writing medium in Egypt around the 26th century BC.
First manufactured and used in Ancient Egypt, papyrus is a material similar to paper which came from the papyrus plant found in abundance near the Nile Delta. While the main use of papyrus was that of a writing surface, the Egyptians found many uses of the material including the construction of boats, rope, sandals and baskets, among other items. In Ancient Egypt, the earliest known surviving piece of papyrus was found in the Tomb of Hemaka, and researchers have suggested a lifetime beginning around 31st century BC. Interestingly enough, just recently in 2013, a group of travelers came upon “a set of 30 caves honeycombed into limestone hills but sealed up and hidden from view in a remote part of the Egyptian desert” (Stille, 2015) and found entire rolls of papyrus still intact and written in hieroglyphics. Unbeknownst to the discoverer Pierre Tallet, the papyri found in the cave (See Figure 3) were written during the time of building the Great Pyramid and is now identified as the oldest known papyri in the world. The papyri found includes a journal detailing the construction of the largest of the pyramids found in Giza, located outside of Cairo, the modern the day capital of Egypt. Ever since the introduction of papyrus in Ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs become a commonality as one of the main forms of writing alongside the hieratic and demotic writing systems in the Late Period of 1st century BC.
Although hieroglyphs were the common written language in Ancient Egypt for centuries, the sharing of the language came to an abrupt end once Rome defeated the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty in 30 BC. When Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony were defeated in the naval Battle of Actium on September 2, 31 BC by Octavian, Egypt became a mere province of the Roman Empire. As a result, hieroglyphics struggled to maintain relevance for several centuries until eventually the ancient language was replaced by the Roman alphabet. This wasn’t until around 1798 CE when Napoleon Bonaparte came to Egypt and began discovering ancient documents and images. One year later, the Rosetta Stone (See Figure 4) was found by Pierre Francois Xavier Bouchard, an officer in the French Army of Engineers, during Napoleon’s Egyptian Invasion near the Nile Delta. The Rosetta Stone is 45 inches tall by 29 inches wide, and contains inscriptions detailing a decree given by King Ptolemy V during the Ptolemaic dynasty. The stone was a landmark moment in discovering the mysteries of the hieroglyphic language as the decree included three different translations: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic script, Demotic script and Ancient Greek. Aforementioned in this paper, it took until 1822 CE when Jean-Francois Champollion discovered that the hieroglyphs are in fact a combination of alphabetical, determinative and syllabic elements. Following the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and Champollion’s findings, international scholars have used the stone as a reference to decode the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic written language.
By comparing the hieroglyphs with the Greek translation written on the Rosetta Stone, Jean-Francois Champollion allowed the world to finally understand the secrets of Ancient Egyptian history. The key in uncovering the mystery behind hieroglyphs began when Champollion compared the names of Ptolemy V and Cleopatra found on the Rosetta Stone to an obelisk located in Philae, then established that the names were also written in Greek on the stone. In the Lettre à M. Dacier written by Champollion (See Figure 5), he reflects that the Egyptian hieroglyphics “is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word.” One of the main breakthroughs which Champollion discovered was that certain sounds could be represented by multiple different hieroglyphic characters or glyphs similar to the English alphabet with letters such as ‘c’ and ‘k’. Similarly, in the letter, Champollion presented the many breakthroughs he found while examining the Rosetta Stone including the exact phonetic readings of the names of rulers in Ancient Egypt commonly found in the hieroglyphs. Following his discovery