Cover Blurb
- Have you ever wished that you could read the beautiful hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt for yourself? Now you can, with the help of this practical step by step guide. It is suitable for complete beginners, or for anyone who would like to improve their knowledge of the language and culture of ancient Egypt.
- Mark Collier and Bill Manley have many years' experience of teaching non-specialists at courses around the UK, so their approach is tried and tested. From the very beginning you will be introduced to genuine texts from ancient monuments Step by step, each chapter introduces a new aspect of the hieroglyphic script or the ancient Egyptian language, and encourages you to develop your growing reading skills with practical exercises.
- The authors concentrate on a fascinating and rewarding group of monuments - funerary inscriptions, coffins and tomb scenes. The texts and supporting notes offer a first-hand insight into topics such as the pharaonic administration, family life in ancient Egypt, and the Egyptian way of death. With this book as your guide, you will be able to read with confidence the monuments reproduced in this book, and Egyptian monuments on display around the world.
- Dr Mark Collier is Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of All Souls College. Oxford
- Dr Bill Manley is Tutor in Egyptology at the University of Glasgow, Research Associate of the National Museums of Scotland and Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Liverpool.
- Dr Richard Parkinson, the illustrator, is an Assistant Keeper in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at The British Museum.
ContentsIntroduction – vii
- Hieroglyphs
… § 1 Introduction – 1
… §2 Reading hieroglyphs – 2
… §3 Transliteration – 2
… §4 1-consonant signs – 2
… §5 Arrangement of signs – 4
… §6 Determinatives: meaning-signs – 5
… §7 Direction of writing – 6
… §8 i and w and plurals – 8
… §9 Nouns – 9
… §10 Adjectives – 10
Exercises – 10
- More uses of hieroglyphs
… §11 2-consonant signs – 15
… §12 3-consonant signs – 17
… §13 Ideograms: sound-meaning signs – 17
… §14 Variant writings – 18
… §15 Writing the plural – 19
… §16 nb, 'all, every, any' and nb, 'lord, master' – 19
… §17 Royal names and titles – 20
… §18 Royal epithets – 21
… §19 Dating – 21
Chart of royal dynasties – 22
Exercises – 23
- Special writings
… §20 Abbreviations – 32
… §21 Change of order: spacing – 32
… §22 Change of order: prestige – 33
… §23 Defective or strange writings – 34
… §24 Titles – 34
… §25 Epithets – 35
… §26 The offering formula – 35
… §27 The genitive – 39
Egyptian funerary deities – 40
Exercises 43
- Scenes and captions
… §28 Captions: the infinitive – 49
… §29 Adoration – 50
… §30 Verb classes and the infinitive – 50
… §31 The forms of the infinitive – 52
The cult of Osiris at Abydos – 54
Exercises – 56
- Description
… §32 Introduction: description – 65
… §33 The past: sdm.n (=f) – 65
… §34 Auxiliaries – 66
… §35 Omission of the first person suffix pronoun – 67
… §36 Suffix pronouns – 67
… §37 The past relative form: sdmt.n(=f) – 68
Names and kinship terms – 69
Exercises – 72
- Further aspects of description
… §38 Continuation – 80
… §39 Negation – 81
… §40 Making someone do something – 82
… §41 Dependent pronouns – 82
… §42 The present tense – 83
… §43 Other things going on – 84
Exercises – 85
- Characterisation
… §44 Adjectives – 93
… §45 Adjectives used as nouns – 94
… §46 Participles – 94
… §47 Participles and epithets – 95
… §48 Participles as nouns – 96
… §49 Characterisation with ink – 96
… §50 Passive participles – 98
… §51 in + noun + participle – 100
… §52 Relative forms again – 100
Middle Kingdom titles 101 Exercises 104
- The future
… §53 The sdmty.fy form – 111
… §54 The appeal to the living – 111
… §55 Wishes, expectations and requests: the future sdm(=f) – 114
… §56 The Abydos formula – 114
… §57 Purpose and causation1 – 115
… §58 Negation – 115
… §59 Forms of the sdmty.fy and the future sdm(=f) – 116
… §60 Adjectives in -y – 117
Exercises – 119
About the front cover – 126
- Hieroglyphic sign-lists for the exercises
… I 1-consonant signs – 127
… II Some common 2-consonant signs – 128
… III Some common 3-consonant signs – 128
… IV Some common ideograms – 128
… V Full sign list – 129
- Reference tables
… Verb forms – 144
… Pronouns, nouns and adjectives – 148
- Egyptian—English vocabulary – 151
- Key to the exercises – 162
… Bibliography and further reading – 174
… Index – 177
"Collier (Mark) & Manley (Bill) - How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-step Guide to Teach Yourself Hieroglyphs"
Source: Collier (Mark) & Manley (Bill) - How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Step-by-step Guide to Teach Yourself Hieroglyphs
Introduction (Full Text, start)
- The aim of this book is to enable you to read and enjoy the hieroglyphs and the language of ancient Egypt. It is chiefly aimed at those who have had no previous experience of reading hieroglyphs, but should also benefit others who would like to improve their knowledge in line with contemporary research. Above all, this is a practical guide: from the very beginning you will be introduced to genuine hieroglyphic texts, with full supporting explanations and study aids. In order to do this, we have concentrated on monuments in the British Museum, in particular the stelae (or funerary inscriptions) of Egyptian officials, as well as coffins, tomb scenes, and the famous Abydos King-list of Ramesses II. Each chapter introduces you to a new feature of the hieroglyphic script or the language, and ends with copies of inscriptions on which you can practise your skills. We believe this approach has a number of advantages.
- First, by reading genuine ancient inscriptions from the first lesson, you can build up your familiarity with the tricks of the trade: everything here (from individual signs to whole inscriptions) is typical of the kind of monuments displayed, not just in the British Museum, but in museums throughout the world. Secondly, by reading these monuments, we hope you will feel a real sense of achievement at each stage of the book. Thirdly, concentrating on a coherent group of monuments will allow us to raise some important topics — such as the role of Osiris, god of the dead, and the Mysteries celebrated at his cult centre, Abydos — which will help you to understand the cultural background of these monuments.
- Rather than cramming in unnecessary detail, we will give you plenty of practice in reading hieroglyphs, and introduce you to the most common features of the ancient Egyptian language as it appears on these monuments. This will give you a firm basis on which to build, if you later move on to study other genres of the wealth of texts which survives from ancient Egypt — literature, religious wisdom, royal decrees, or whatever.
- This book has developed out of a course which we have been teaching since 1992. It was clear to us back then that the existing introductions to ancient Egyptian were either too brief or too detailed, and that there was a need for an up-to-date course adapted to the needs of beginners.
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