Customer Reviews

How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-Step Guide to Teach Yourself, Revised Edition

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, what title should I give for a book on Egyptian hieroglyphs?

Actually, the information blurb from the Library Journal linked to the book's entry here states: 'Reference collections desiring more complete coverage will want Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar (1957. 3d ed.) despite some obsolescence in the treatment of the verbal system.'

I actually learned hieroglyphs using that text at the University of London in the 1980s. But I have assembled a collection of more accessible books on how to learn hieroglyphs as refreshers and for sharing. I have four texts, and this was the first of the lot.

If you are truly interested in learning Egyptian hieroglyphs for an upcoming trip to Egypt or to visit a museum with a collection (I amazed a friend once by being able to read an inscription at the museum; I confessed that of the hundreds of 'paragraphs' of hieroglyphs in the collection, that that was one of only two I could decipher without my notebook), Collier and Manley's 'How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs' is a good choice for learning.

It begins with a basic description of the way in which hieroglyphs are used (some signs are words, but actually very few, and others are sound-meaning symbols). Collier and Manley introduce a transliteration system to ease your way into pronunciation (and pronunciation is very sketchy, given the fact there are no recordings from ancient Egypt). Symbols can vary occasionally for sound, meaning, and determinative value.

The pattern of hieroglyphs is also variable. Generally, you always want to 'read into the face', i.e., the picto-glyphs will be facing the direction from which to start -- more often right to left than left to right, and columns go top to bottom. There are no punctuation marks and no word breaks -- this can make meanings hard to decipher.

Consider the example:

IAMNOWHERE
which could be broken into
I AM NOW HERE
or
I AM NOWHERE
and in this case, context might not help provide which meaning is the true one. Or perhaps the author is poetical and sees the trouble of distinction and means that trouble to be present.

No wonder hieroglyphs are hard!

Collier and Manley's book is excellent in basic vocabulary building and basic grammar. And, if you're like me and will make flash cards, you'll become a better draw-er too.

There are exercises, and pictures of inscriptions to practice on, and a key to the exercises in the back of the book. --.

If you are interested in reading Egyptian hieroglyphs, this is really a good book to study. There is complete information about the nature of this kind of writing - a mixture of symbolic and phonetic writing - with a dictionary and exercises to test your newly acquired knowledge in deciphering coded message. Lots of fun.

I'm 16 years old, I am planning a trip to Egypt. When I get out of High School. This book is great for me, Because I Love Egypt with all my Heart and it will help me to understand the country better. I first got this book from the Library, But I am going to buy it as soon as I can. There is one book I read before this one. The book is call Hieroglyphs: The Writing of Ancient Egypt. This book was ok, but it didn't go in to detail like this one. Its a good book for those who want a lite read. So if you love Egypt as much as I do, you will get How to read Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
Blessed Be

This book is my second reading into the works of Egyptlogy and
heiroglyphics. I found it informative and methodical. It was written
for the beginner, but with some added advanced grammatical lessons.
I loved this book and would recommended to the Egyptology enthusiast.

If you want to learn hieroglyphs and you want more than the basic simple books that are available on the market... buy this book!!!

It begins with offering formulas and the names of pharaos and thereby you will instantly be able to read simple texts and get much joy out of the studies. The offering formulas are somewhat alike in all instances and is excellent to begin your studies with!

In short! Buy the book!

m htp

This book was really helpful for me when I wanted to learn how to read heiroglyphs. It focused on some pretty hard stuff and explained it step by step. It's an excellent book for beginners.

Well, what title should I give for a book on Egyptian hieroglyphs?

Actually, the information blurb from the Library Journal linked to the book's entry here states: 'Reference collections desiring more complete coverage will want Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar (1957. 3d ed.) despite some obsolescence in the treatment of the verbal system.'

I actually learned hieroglyphs using that text at the University of London in the 1980s. But I have assembled a collection of more accessible books on how to learn hieroglyphs as refreshers and for sharing. I have four texts, and this was the first of the lot.

If you are truly interested in learning Egyptian hieroglyphs for an upcoming trip to Egypt or to visit a museum with a collection (I amazed a friend once by being able to read an inscription at the museum; I confessed that of the hundreds of 'paragraphs' of hieroglyphs in the collection, that that was one of only two I could decipher without my notebook), Collier and Manley's 'How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs' is a good choice for learning.

It begins with a basic description of the way in which hieroglyphs are used (some signs are words, but actually very few, and others are sound-meaning symbols). Collier and Manley introduce a transliteration system to ease your way into pronunciation (and pronunciation is very sketchy, given the fact there are no recordings from ancient Egypt). Symbols can vary occasionally for sound, meaning, and determinative value.

The pattern of hieroglyphs is also variable. Generally, you always want to 'read into the face', i.e., the picto-glyphs will be facing the direction from which to start -- more often right to left than left to right, and columns go top to bottom. There are no punctuation marks and no word breaks -- this can make meanings hard to decipher.

Consider the example:

IAMNOWHERE
which could be broken into
I AM NOW HERE
or
I AM NOWHERE
and in this case, context might not help provide which meaning is the true one. Or perhaps the author is poetical and sees the trouble of distinction and means that trouble to be present.

No wonder hieroglyphs are hard!

Collier and Manley's book is excellent in basic vocabulary building and basic grammar. And, if you're like me and will make flash cards, you'll become a better draw-er too.

There are exercises, and pictures of inscriptions to practice on, and a key to the exercises in the back of the book.

The good: the authors give a good, solid introduction to Middle Egyptian. No, you will not be reading the Book of the Dead by the time you are through, but you will be able to at least handle a funerary stela (with work) in a museum. All in all, the book covers the material offered in the first few weeks of a university course in Middle Egyptian. Don't expect more! The illustrations are wonderful as well.

The bad: the alpha-numeric system used for identifying hieroglyphs (e.g., "A2") are non-standard. If you move on to a more advanced grammar, you will need to re-learn these (not a big deal, but still one wonders why the authors didn't just use the standard "Gardiner" system to begin with). More significantly, the authors focus almost entirely on objects in British museums (mainly *the* British Museum). Fine and good, but they leave out a host of other more important texts -- important in that these other texts reflect Middle Egyptian grammar better (such as the "Shipwrecked Sailor" and the Story of Sinuhe". Almost all the texts the authors use are funerary stelae and wall inscriptions. These are important of course, but are typically collecitons of formulaic phrases that do not very much. Once you learn to read one, you can pretty much read the others. Middle Egyptian literary texts (i.e., real language, not just formulae) are totally ignored.

Bottom line: as long as you don't want to read much more than formulaic funerary stelae (and a few other things), this book is good and particularly suited for rank beginners without access to a teacher. It will not, however, teach you Middle Egyptian by any means. In that case, James Allen's "Middle Egyptian" is a better choice for those serious about learning the Egyptian language.

You won't become an expert on ancient Egypt's writing, but you'll be able to read and decypher common writings from popular museum exhibits, and tourist destinations. This book has been used as a textbook for a college egyptology class, that ought to tell you something!

The exercises are easy to do, and the entire text is well written. I'd like to see an advanced hieroglyphs book put out by the authors of this one, as I'm very interested in the writing style after going through this book.

As I said, if you want to be able to read and decypher hieroglyphs, this is the best book I've found for the layperson.

I bought this book three years ago and to this day i still cannot practically decipher a single ancient egyptian word! may be i have not given myself time or i am a slow-catcher...

the book is dense and seems to assume that you have a good foundation on egyptian hieroglyphs. the first pages will definitely boost your confidence, just wait until u get to the more challenging stuff like sentence deciphering! i am not surprised, because the book contains a massive glossary at the back. i can conjecture that the reason for this is that it is assumed that u will have to learn this by heart...in fact i think one of the pages advises so. in this regard, i am not sure about the appropriateness of the title, 'step-by-step'.

i bet that if u can pull out a basic hieroglyphic text from a tomb, many people who read this book - probably even experts - might relatively struggle (on the spot)! we must not forget that to this day, even the sacred pyramid texts (unas) have not been satisfactory deciphered. it is easy translating a name using the simple alphabet translation, but a sentence is another matter. may be this is one of those disciplines u need to sit in a class and be lectured on...

if u buy, good luck, u might find it smooth sailing...