Hieroglyphics are one of the oldest forms of writing. Do you know why people have been writing for so long? It’s because they are made in God’s image.
God could have created the world and people and left it at that. But He didn’t. He used words to tell us about Himself. He is a God who speaks, and because He speaks we can know Him. We’re like Him, so we speak and write too. We can use His gift of language to praise Him, to talk about His incredible creation, to touch other people with kind words, and much more!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. — John 1:1
How To: Hieroglyph
Are you ready to start reading the ’glyphs?
- Crack the seal. Ancient Egyptians invented papyrus, which was made from a river plant. Papyrus was all the rage for a long time—over 3,000 years! Once a scribe finished writing on this sturdy paper, he or she might close it up with a seal made from mud.
- Read from left to right. Or right to left. Egyptian hieroglyphics can work either way. How do you know which way to go on your particular papyrus? Read from the direction in which the human or animal glyphs are facing.
- Learn your “ABCs.” The English alphabet has 26 letters. You might remember when you first memorized them. How would you feel about learning over 700 symbols instead? Hieroglyphics scribes started this gargantuan task early—around age six or seven.
- Ask the stone. Stuck? So were the French people who found the Rosetta Stone in Rosetta (also called Rashid), Egypt, in 1799. The stone was inscribed with the same text in three different scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic (another Egyptian type of writing), and ancient Greek. Scholars used the ancient Greek language, which was known, to translate hieroglyphics for the first time.
For more about language and word play, see The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster in our Recommended Reading.
