Egyptian Symbols and Figures: Hieroglyphs
Introduction
This
lesson introduces students to the writing, art, and religious beliefs of ancient
Egypt through hieroglyphs, one of the oldest writing systems in the world, and
through tomb paintings. Hieroglyphs consist of pictures of familiar objects that
represent sounds. They were used in ancient Egypt from about 3100 BC to 400 CE. In
the first part of this lesson, the class creates a pictorial alphabet of its own
and then learns and uses the symbols of the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet. In
the second part of the lesson, students identify and represent in their own drawings
figures from the Book of the Dead, a funereal text written on papyrus and carved
on the walls of tombs to help guide the deceased through the afterlife.
Guiding Questions: What are some ways people
have used to communicate in the past and the present? What writing systems have
been developed in other cultures at other times? What can tomb paintings tell
us about ancient religious beliefs in Egypt?
Learning Objectives
After
completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to:
- Identify certain Egyptian hieroglyphs and recognize
their meanings and uses
- Become familiar with
aspects of ancient Egyptian culture and religion and their relationship to hieroglyphs
- Explain
what a symbol is and use symbols to represent words and thoughts
- Discuss
different ways of representing ideas and conveying them to others
- Understand
the meaning and purposes of the Egyptian Book of the Dead
- Identify
ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses and explain their historical social and religious
roles
Suggested ActivitiesLesson
1: Decipher the Hieroglyphs Lesson
2: Make an Egyptian Painting
Lesson 1 Decipher
the Hieroglyphs
Background Information for Teacher: The
ancient Egyptians created a form of picture-writing known as hieroglyphs around
3100 BC. Each picture was a symbol representing something they observed in their
surroundings. A simple drawing of the sun represented the sun, a drawing of a
vulture signified a vulture, a drawing of a rope indicated a rope, and so on.
But certain objects, and more particularly ideas, were difficult to represent
with a single drawing. So they resorted to a system of drawing symbols of
things that sounded like what they were trying to convey. This was the ancient
Egyptian version of a rebus. (A rebus is a representation of a word or phrase
that uses pictures that sound like the word or phrase, or its syllables.) An English
example of a rebus is a bee and a leaf drawn side by side; when read aloud, they
sound like the word "belief." But this approach to writing could become cumbersome
and confusing. Eventually, a system evolved in which a symbol was drawn
to represent a specific sound (a consonant). Several symbols were written together
to make a word. This is the closest the Egyptians ever came to creating an alphabet.
Vowels were not written, but were added (usually eh or ah) by the reader. For
this reason, we don't know exactly what ancient Egyptian sounded like.
Hieroglyphs were written vertically (top to bottom) or horizontally (left to right
or right to left). To read a horizontal line, one moved toward the faces of the
animal symbols. (They all faced in the same direction.) There was no punctuation,
and to save space, two small symbols often occupied the space of one larger one.
The names of royalty were surrounded with an oval, known as a cartouche. Although
there are thousands of symbols, the most commonly occurring are a set of 24, which
modern archaeologists use as a working alphabet. They include vowels sounds, although
in Egyptian the sound would have been that of a vowel linked with a consonant,
such as ahhhhh or uhhhhhh. The hieroglyphic
alphabet can be viewed at the EDSITEment-reviewed website Nova:
Pyramids. Print out copies of the list of "letters" for later use.
Hieroglyphs were used at first by a small group of scribes to keep records. Later,
they were carved (and then painted) on the walls of tombs and temples, on obelisks,
and on sculpture. (Hieroglyph means "sacred carved writing.") They were also written
with pen and colored ink on sheets of papyrus. In addition to the glyphs representing
sounds (called phonograms), there were a small number that represent entire words
or concepts (ideograms). You can view some ideograms
at the EDSITEment-reviewed Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Make copies of the ideograms for later use. Class
Activity:
Tell the students to pretend
that they have no form of writing. Then ask them how they can send a message to
someone far away. Brainstorm until someone suggests that this can be done with
pictures. Ask them what sort of pictures they would draw. These would have to
be simple things familiar to the message sender and the receiver. Have the students
think about their natural environment. What objects are most familiar? Encourage
the students to think of trees, grass, stones, birds, squirrels, flowers and anything
that is typical of your environment. (If you live in Arizona, symbols might include
cactus and snakes.) Make a list on the board of objects that could be used to
send a "picture message." Suggest they include human body parts, like hands, feet,
eyes, and ears. Now ask how the following
message could be depicted with pictures: "The tree is split in two." One would
simply draw a tree broken in two. Explain that they can actually make a written
language using these pictures to express more complicated actions, such as: "The
silly rabbit lost its carrot and had to go to sleep hungry." Ask for their ideas
of how this can be done. Then explain the system of using pictures to represent
sounds rather than specific images. For example, a picture of a tree could represent
the sound (or letter) b. Using the list you've already written on the board, assign
a sound to each one. (You might mention that a fun part of this activity is that
spelling doesn't matter. It's what you hear that counts.) Make certain you have
included the following letter sounds: a, aw, b, d, ee, g (hard), h, i, k (for
hard c), l, n, oh, p, r, s, t, th, oo, and uh.
Now that you have your alphabet, work together to figure out how to write the
sentence ("The silly rabbit lost its carrot and had to go to sleep hungry.") using
the symbols. Write it on the board. Tell
the students about Egyptian hieroglyphs, referring to the information in the Introduction.
Point out that the Egyptian system was the same as the one they've just invented
themselves. Show them the Egyptian alphabet on the EDSITEment reviewed website
Nova: Pyramids.
The students will be happily surprised to see that the Egyptians used symbols
similar to those they chose, although some are different, given the differences
in environment. (The environment of Egypt is desert/river valley.) Point out that
birds (there are three - a chick, a vulture, and an owl, as well as feathers)
seem to have been important to the Egyptians. So was water (the symbol for n).
Explain that b is a foot (did you have one in your list?) and r is a mouth.
Hand out copies you have previously printed of the Egyptian alphabet to each child
as well as blank sheets of paper and pencils. As a group, make up some short sentences.
For example, "the moon is big." Ask the students to write a sentence
on the paper using the Egyptian letters. Have them share the results. Then do
another sentence. Now explain about ideograms,
referring to the information in the Background Information for Teachers. Show
them the ideograms
on the EDSITEment-reviewed website Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Carefully read aloud what
each symbol means, encouraging the students to ask questions. Point out that shen
and ankh (meaning eternal life) and wedjat (good health) were especially
important in Egyptian culture. Tell the students
that hieroglyphs were often carved on the inner walls of tombs as well as on stone
tablets called stellae. Then go the EDSITEment reviewed website
Nova: Pyramids. On
the screen that appears, click Programs A-Z, then scroll down and click Egypt's
Golden Empire, on the next screen click Egyptian Experience, click enter, on the
next screen click hieroglyph translator, and finally click extract one. This is
an actual sentence in Egyptian hieroglyphs taken from a stella. With the students
carefully observing, scan across from right to left, slowly reading the translation
aloud. (Remember, always read toward the faces of the animal symbols.) Remind
the students that this is an English translation of an ancient Egyptian message,
since the language might appear a bit stilted to them. Now
that the students have an idea of how hieroglyphs were used, tell them they will
be Egyptian scribes. Make certain that they have their copies of the Egyptian
alphabet. Hand out the copies of the ideograms. Pass out large pieces of white
paper and markers or crayons. Each child will write his or her name in hieroglyphs
(first and last), followed by an ideogram of his or her choice. Remind them to
put a cartouche around their name. Explain that the Egyptian scribes worked very
slowly and carefully. When the project is
done, have the students share their hieroglyphs with one another. If time is an
issue, you may have the students present their name hieroglyphs and ideograms
in small groups while you walk around the room posing questions or giving comments.
Then hang them proudly on a bulletin board.
Extending the Lesson Now that the students have some background about
Egyptian writing, art, and religious beliefs, gather a collection of colorfully
illustrated books about ancient Egyptian culture from your school library. Many
stories are currently available which can be read aloud to the children. The
Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1989) is
a favorite with this age group. Older children could do research projects on their
favorite gods or goddesses, finding stories about them derived from ancient Egyptian
mythology. Material on this subject is available at EDSITEment reviewed websites,
including Exploring Ancient World Cultures,
Odyssey Online, and Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Selected EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
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