The ancient Egyptian language is one of the oldest languages in the world. Archaeological discoveries suggest that Egyptian hieroglyphs, the oldest form of writing. Egyptian was spoken from about 4000 BC to the 11th century after Christ. The Egyptian language has almost 5000 years of recorded history than any other human language.
The system of writing used in ancient Egypt hieroglyphs, also known as hieroglyphics, and consisted of drawings and photographs. The term ' hieroglyph "was first used by the Greeks, which is derived from ' hieros ', meaning ' Holy ' and ' glypho ', meaning ' engraving '. The Greeks used it because they are the same type of writing for their sacred texts.
Egyptians called hieroglyphs "the oracles of God", and they were mainly used to decorate temples and monuments. Hieroglyphs were carved or painted on stone, as well as written on papyrus with pen and ink.
Hieroglyphs were used for the first time a record of the King's possessions. A picture of a cow or boat would be followed by a glyph that represents a number. A thorough numeric system using glyphs was developed.
The ancient Egyptian word for hieroglyphs, literally translated as "language of the gods," indicates their importance. Priests hieroglyphics used to the prayers, magical texts, and texts relating to life after death and the gods worship. In the preparation of their graves, many people had autobiography and hieroglyphic guides after World written on the surfaces of Tomb walls and on the inside of coffins. The Egyptians believed that these texts helped guide the dead through the afterlife.
The use of hieroglyphic inscriptions was not reserved for religious purposes. Civil officials used them to Royal documents on long-term interest, to record historical events, and document calculations, such as the depth of the Nile on a particular day of the year to write. Hieroglyphs the Egyptians also used to decorate jewelry and other luxury articles.
A common characteristic of ancient writing is the absence of punctuation – there are often no spaces between words and no periods to indicate the end of a sentence. Like other scripts from the Proto-Sinaitic period had the ancient Egyptian writing only consonants.
Hieroglyphs in rows or columns are written and from left to right or from right to left can be read. You can change the direction in which the text be read because the human or animal figures always point to the beginning of the line of sight for the distinguished.
Cartouche hieroglyphs were used to an oval shape within which the names of the birth of Pharaohs and Queens, were written. The cartouche was thought to protect the person whose name the embedded, as well as the site where it was posted. The word "cartouche" was first applied to the cartouche symbol by the French soldiers who are part of the military campaign of 1798, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. the symbol resembled a pistol cartridge, or bullets-the words pistol cartridge was ' cartouche ' in the French language. Cartouche hieroglyphics are a common feature of the tombs of Egyptian royalty.
After expiration of time was writing more widespread amongst Egyptians, and simplified glyphs forms were developed resulting in the Demotic and hieratic writing, which is much easier and faster if papyrus than complex hieroglyphics rewritten. When the hieratic writing was first evolved used exclusively for religious texts. Demotic writing was employed for more general forms of written communication, such as letters. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, is overshadowed, but exist alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing.
The only people allowed to writing and reading of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were scribes, who were seen as professionals and held in high regard. The ancient Egyptians were of the belief that the scribes had the ability to write by Thoth, whom they worshipped the god of hieroglyphics.
For many years the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer palette, found during excavations at Hierakonpolis in the 1890s, which has been dated to ca. 3200 BC-the very well preserved, with excellent hieroglyphic characters thought the unification of upper and lower Egypt under King Narmer imagining. However, in 1998 a German archaeological team under Gunter Dreyer excavating at Abydos uncovered tomb U-j of a predynastic ruler, and recovered three hundred clay labels inscribed with hieroglyphics, porto-up to the 33rd century BCE. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on an impression of the seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen Umm el-Qa'ab, which dates from the 2nd dynasty.
In these eras about 800 hieroglyphs existed. By the Graeco-Roman period, they numbered more than 5,000. Scholars generally believe that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably, were under the influence of the latter invented. However, there is no final determination has been made as regards the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt.
in AD 391 the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed all pagan temples in the Empire. This action ended a four-thousand-year-old tradition and the message of the ancient Egyptian language was lost for 1,500 years.
The importance of the Egyptian hieroglyphics perhaps never realized without the discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta stone by Napoleon's troops in the Egyptian port of Rashid who now shuts down at the British museum. The stone contains hieroglyphic and Demotic writing, as well as classical Greek text. British scientist Thomas Young finished decipher the Demotic writing in 1814. French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion expanded on his work, many of the hieroglyphics translated by 1822. The Rosetta Stone is considered one of the most important artifacts on the road to understanding of the complexity of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Today, on the basis of the huge amount of their literature we know more about the Egyptian society than most other ancient cultures.
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