Triarama Task
Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphs were a system of writing that used ideograms or logograms, instead of an alphabet, that may either represent, objects ,ideas or a subject as a form of writing. Often used as a combination of ideograms- symbols that expressed a whole word or idea, and phonograms- symbols that suggest a phonetic sound, they were created by the ancient Egyptians as a form of writing and date back to the earliest periods of their history from about 3100 B.C. The word “hieroglyphics” is derived from the two Greek words- hieros, for sacred, and glyphein, for writing. Hieroglyphs did not contain either vowels or punctuation and could be read either from right to left or left to right, in order to know which direction to read in, the scribe would positioned the hieroglyphs so that they face the correct way. It was thought that ancient Egyptian writing developed from the Mesopotamia’s pictographic cuneiform, but while the Mesopotamians’ developed a more comprehensive writing, the Egyptians never lost their pictographic nature. However, in the time of the new kingdom, the hieroglyphic writing was reformed by scribes, as it was too impractical for everyday use, and a new handwriting called hieratic writing was created that was just a form of simplified hieroglyphics better suited for quick writing.
Again in 700 B.C further refinement of the hieratic writing created the demotic or popular script that was primarily used for such things as letters, accounts and record keeping, and eventually derived from demotic writing, glyphs based on Greek alphabet called Coptic writing would emerge. At last, when the ancient Egyptian civilization began to fade so did the use of hieroglyphs and by 394 A.D the last recorded use of hieroglyphs were found on the temple of Isis in Philae, by that time only a few priests knew the their meaning and kept it a secret. Not until 1799 when Napoleons army found the Rosetta stone while they were digging trenches near Rashid Egypt, was light shed on the meaning of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs . When the Rosetta stone was first brought to Napoleon, he had copies of impressions made and sent out to scholars throughout Europe. One of these people who examined the impressions and built on the work by others, was Jean Francois Champollion, who after 23 years of testing his hypothesis on hieroglyphs, was able to break the code and thus their meaning. The greater part of his success is due to the Rosetta stone, which by having the same thing written in three languages: Ancient Greek, Coptic and of course hieroglyphic, the secrets of ancient Egypt would be finally unlocked.
The Essay on Ancient Egyptian Religious Architecture
One of the greatest cultural achievements of Ancient Egypt was undoubtedly in their architecture associated with religion. Temples, tombs and pyramids all have witnessed this earth for thousands of years. What better than to say that these architectural achievements show us that Egypts greatest virtue lay in its architecture (Fumeaux:11, 1964) When one travels to Egypt, what does he/she see ...
Hieroglyphs improved ancient Egyptian civilization by enabling them a way to express words ,thoughts, ideas and gave them the ability to express themselves by decorating tomb and temple walls with both a visually pleasing adornment and a way to proclaim the lives of the deceased, and tales of goddess and goddesses, that added to their religion and from that important religious rituals that made up the ancient Egyptian culture. Also writing enabled ordinary people a way to communicate with each other via letters, to keep records of past events and transactions. By means of writing people would be able to leave instructions for next generations, as well it would enable the government to improve organization,
and to send messages to troops that could be miles away through writing on papyrus scrolls or tablets. This way instead of a messenger having to memorize possibly lengthy messages, that could easily be forgotten along the way, and by repercussion armies could be killed because the messenger forgot to warn them against the surprise attack that was happening on Tuesday, because of all the other messages they had to memorize that day. As well the invention of writing in ancient Egypt allowed the preservation of Egyptian history and culture, that otherwise would have been lost without the means of writing it down. Since hieroglyphics faded from use in A.D 394 and then rediscovered and unlocked in the nineteenth century by Jean François Champollion, not much of its influence can be seen in modern day society. However in parts of the world such as Japan and China, they use ideograms ,which, is the same concept the Egyptians used with their hieroglyphs.
The Term Paper on Ancient History of the Hieroglyphics
Have you every wondered where all writing began ? Have you often thought of the secrets about life that ancient civilizations took to their graves with them ? If so, you should be very interested in learning about an ancient writing technique called hieroglyphics, which many scientists believe is the origin of all writing (Bolia 2).Hieroglyphics are not only one of the oldest recorded languages, ...
