Egyptian hieroglyphics

I have a colorful page of Egyptian hieroglyphics, alphabetized in English, on my refrigerator. I got it a number of years ago when I saw an exhibition of the Rosetta Stone. I find television programs about ancient Egypt fascinating and recently watched a documentary on the discovery of deciphering the hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphics is a written form of drawings and symbols, but rather than letters as in our modern English alphabet, the symbols represent sounds. Every time I see the sound symbol glyphs on the fridge, I marvel at the translation achievement.

A French linguist, Champollion, had been obsessed with hieroglyphics from a very young age. He was familiar with the work of Thomas Young, an Englishman, who had discovered cartouches, which were phonetic representatives of Greek names. Further translation remained stymied until Champollion decided to work backwards thru older languages than Coptic, finally focusing on a cartouche with only 4 glyphs.

The first two drawing were unknown, but the repeated pair at the end represented 's'. (/??-s-s). Champollion wondered if the first glyph might represent the Coptic word for sun - ra. (ra-s-s). If he allowed for the omission of vowels, the missing letter had to be 'm'. Only one pharonic name fit....Ramses!

The breakthrough came on September 23, 1827. Champollion shouted to his brother, "Je tiens l'affair'" ('I got it"), and promptly fainted. He remained bedridden for 5 days. On the 27th, his famous report was read at the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in Paris.



Fridge and Glyphs