Rosetta Project- Part 2 Eqyptian to Arabic

So this is what we needed to translate: Eqyptian Hieroglyphics. At first I thought that this would be pretty easy. Check out some books from the library, locate the glyphs, find the English meaning, then translate that in Hebrew and Arabic. Boy, was I wrong.

So my group reserved a room at the library and we checked out a bunch of books about Egyptian Hieroglyphics with their English meanings. No big, right? Well, it turns out Egyptian Hieroglyphics are way more complicated than that. It turns out there are several way to read them. You basically read them left to right, but then it gets tricky if there are some glyphs that are stacked. Some stacked glyphs equal a word or they could be a phrase.

It gets even harder because of the dynasties. I have never thought about it but the hieroglyphics changed over time, especially when new families or dynasties took over.

Rosetta Project- Part 1

Koran in Arabic.

Torah in Hebrew.

This project gave me a greater appreciation and understanding of the different writing mediums and languages of the world. I have always thought "the Egyptians carved in stone because that what was available to them and they were good at it, it was probably a breeze for them." Now, I can imagine some tired stone-cutter thinking "man, I hate this job, why can't the gods have been more merciful and given mankind an easier writing medium?"