The birth of Egyptian writing falls at the end of the 4th millennium BC. It is based on a picturesque letter, where each object or concept was transmitted using an image. Clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, rock inscriptions - this is all that was the main carrier of information in Egypt and to a small extent has survived to this day. Scientists called strange simplified drawings hieroglyphs, and the writing system itself is called hieroglyphics. The textbook "History of the Ancient World, Grade 5" only in general touches on this interesting topic. The origin, distribution of the ancient Egyptian script and the later attempts to decipher it are described in this article.
Divine signs
The Egyptians believed that every hieroglyph is sacred, since Thoth taught the writing of Egypt - the god of wisdom. The letter itself was called "muentr" - "the words of God." The picture-image of the word is the main thing that was the main carrier of information in Egypt. Scientists found the first hieroglyphs on the walls of tombs, temples, on sarcophagi and obelisks - on all those majestic monuments carved from stone that have reached modern times.
By the middle of II millennium BC. the Egyptians used about 700 hieroglyphs when writing, after another thousand years their number increased to several thousand. Most of the signs are just an image of their objects. Sometimes a sign could indicate a syllable - in this case, a single word was expressed in a letter by several hieroglyphs. Egyptian signs are ambiguous - the same syllable could be designated by different hieroglyphs. The meaning of this or that word could be specified by special drawings - determinants. Such signs did not indicate the word itself, but clarified its meaning. Thus, ancient writing conveyed abstract concepts, feelings and images on writing, which would be difficult to express otherwise. Everything that was a carrier of information in Egypt was covered by a chain of amazing, mysterious signs.
Lack of vowels
Hieroglyphics for syllables indicated only consonants in a given syllable. Vowel letters were not used in the letter. This feature is characteristic of both ancient and modern languages - for example, Arabic script also does not use vowels. Therefore, the exact transcription (sounding) of the word is still not known to us, and the same Egyptian words can be read in different transcriptions, depending on the source used.
The writing and knowledge of the Egyptians became widespread in the era of the New Kingdom. The development of trade, the strengthening of state power led to the emergence of a new type of letter, in which separate signs began to be written together, merged into one symbol. Writing and reading has become easier, and scientists called the new types of signs demon - folk writing.
How to teach writing
The schools of ancient Egypt were usually located at temples. The sons of officials were sent to schools at the age of five or six. Future scribes took bread and a jug of wine from the house, and every day went to study, like all modern schoolchildren.
First of all, the child was taught reading and writing. Papyrus was too expensive material and was not given to schoolchildren. The students tried to write on polished limestone plates, drawn into a cage and a ruler. Such plates served for the same purposes as modern school notebooks. To the question of what was the main medium of information in Egypt, one can give the following answer: all the "notebooks" that have survived to this day serve as a reliable source of knowledge about the level of training and education in this country.
In addition to writing and reading, students studied art, history, geography in detail, taught them military science and the laws of technology.
At the end of the course of sciences, an adult student was given a precious papyrus. Egypt was one of the main producers of papyrus in the ancient world, and the most important state documents of this country have survived to this day in fragile scrolls. Therefore, the presentation of sheets of this precious material to the young man meant that he was ready to consider his candidacy for the position of state official. Under the skillful hand of the scribe, the papyrus was covered with columns of hieroglyphs, and for beauty, the text was colored with bright colors.
Forgotten letters
Almost two thousand years have passed since the heyday of Ancient Egypt. The country came under the rule of the mighty Roman Empire. Emperor Theodosius at the end of I in A.D. closes the last temples of Osiris and Amon. The Egyptians have long been using the Coptic language, which in its composition is very different from the language of the ancients, and Greek letters are used in writing . Everything that was the main carrier of information in Egypt became simply strange, ancient and uninteresting rarities. Seven centuries of domination of the Greeks and Romans was enough for a great culture to cease to exist. Greek philosophers were interested in Egyptian religion and philosophy, but without knowledge of writing, this information turned out to be fragmentary and superficial. The Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria still found a time when the Egyptians were able to read hieroglyphs, he gave a brief description of the features of writing and reading of some signs, but did not consider it necessary to talk about the features of their use. Both the medieval sages and the Chinese philosophers made an effort to unravel the secrets of Egyptian writings. And only in the XIX century it was possible to lift the veil of secrecy over the mystery of hieroglyphs.
Rosetta stone
During the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon, Captain Bouchard found a small stone near Rosetta with the remains of inscriptions in three ancient languages. Scientists have concluded that the Greek, Latin, and Egyptian texts speak of the gratitude of the priests given by Ptolemy Epiphanes, and these texts are essentially the same message in different languages. The Rosetta stone gave impetus to the correct decoding of Egyptian writing by French scholars, linguists and Egyptologists named Jean Francois Chompollon. His work, entitled "A Brief Outline of the Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic System or the Study of the Elements of this Letter" gave rise to the existence of the science of Egyptology.
Conclusion
Lime notebooks of students, papyrus state scribes and inscriptions on stone and marble, with which the priests adorned their temples, were the basis for the study of ancient Egypt. Egyptology today is a science that has answered many questions about the writing, culture, politics and life of Ancient Egypt; the achievements of science are summarized in the manual “History of the Ancient World, Grade 5”. Pupils of a comprehensive school today in a few lessons can learn the information over which the great minds of the past have puzzled.