Ancient Egypt

Language and Writing

Cursive hieroglyphs: a section of the Book of the Dead on the Papyrus of Ani, 19th Dynasty (British Museum)

Coptic alphabet

Hieroglyphs, demotic, and Greek: the Rosetta Stone, 196 BCE (British Museum)

The Narmer Palette, 64 x 42 cm, from Hierokonpolis (Egyptian Museum)

Hatshepsut’s cartouche

The Rosetta Stone, detail with Ptolemy V’s cartouche

The Rosetta Stone and the Philae obelisk, 118-117 BCE (Kingston Lacy, Dorset, England) with cartouches of Ptolemy and Cleopatra

Champollion's table of hieroglyphic phonetic characters with their

demotic and Coptic equivalents (1822)

Lintel of the God’s Wife Amenardis, 740—656 BCE (Karnak, Temple of Amun)

Scribal equipment

New Kingdom seal ring: "The King's scribe, overseer of the harem, Ahmose" (Louvre)

Relief from Queen Tiye’s temple at Sedeinga, Sudan: the hieroglyph of Amun (top left) and the god's face were hacked out on orders of Akhenaten (1353-1336) and were later restored

Anubis and Hathor welcome Tutankhamun (18th Dyn); fresco, south wall of the burial chamber, Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62)

Hieratic script: school copy of a letter to Vizier Khay (Royal Ontario Museum)

Demotic script on the Rosetta Stone

Cursive hieroglyphs: a section of the Book of the Dead on the Papyrus of Ani, 19th Dynasty (British Museum)

Coptic alphabet

Hieroglyphs: the Rosetta Stone, 196 BCE (British Museum)

Logograms

Phonograms

Determinatives

uniconsonantal

The Narmer Palette, 64 x 42 cm, from Hierokonpolis (Egyptian Museum)

Several inscribed bone tags from tomb U-j (Scorpion’s?) at Umm el-Qa’ab.

Palaeolithic 700,000-7000 BCE

Saharan Neolithic 8800-4700Early 8800-6800Middle 6600-5100Late 5100-4700

Predynastic 5300-3000 Lower Egypt

Neolithic 5300-4000Maadi 4000-3200

Upper EgyptBadarian 4400-4000Naqada I 4000-3500 (Amratian)Naqada II 3500-3200 (Gerzean)Naqada III 3200-3000 (Dynasty 0)

1ST Persian Period (27th-30th) 525-4042d Persian Period 343-332Ptolemaic Period 332-30

Macedonian332-310Ptolemaic 305-30

Roman 30 BCE-642 CE