HIEROGLYPHS

I am reading a little book about Hieroglyphs. I found it at the public library here. I was initially going for the Rosetta Stone interpretation and deciphering when i couldnt find it. So I resorted to this introduction. It is not bad at all. Some parts I skip. At times I wish to memorise the figures to know how to read when I am in the presence of the big temple back in egypt, but I comfort myself that I will anyway forget it by then.

SO what is intriguing is the 'taking for granted' section about language and how we use it. In the egyptian language, it is different all together than english. They have dilemma where to put the sounds, or the description, and the letters itself. So the sentence has teh action, place, who does it and its voice. The last picture is the actual description. Very interesting.

And the nile was the actual inspiration in everything they were doing. They way they designed the 'talk baloons' and the inscription like the river. All in straight horizontal lines. As if resembling the river, river banks, cultivated strip, trees, desert... if viewed as flat surface, then all of these elements are arranged in perspective.

There is also this captivating picture of 'pashedu' at deir el medina. it is a picture of a guy praying, putting his head on the floor (pro??? i forgot the word), and the hieroglyphs of the prayers are designed in a way that gives the impression as if his words float up into the air around him.

Very interesting.

Ah, egyptians were illiterate. Only less than 1 percent knew how to write or even speak hieroglyphs, that was only used to address god. They had another local language!

I wonder if I am egyptian! It is interesting how we just never really cared about our own history. Maybe it is not our history after all. We never treated it well enough throughout history.