Scribes of Ancient Egypt - Mrs. Schnell's class

In this lesson you will determine how writing influenced the advancements of the economy, improve weaponry, trade, and the development of a class system in the Ancient Egyptian civilizations. 

PART 1   

Answer the questions as you move through the interactive. The Children’s University of Manchester (2012).

http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/egypt/hieroglyphs/

 How long ago did the Ancient Egyptian’s develop a writing system?

What does hieroglyph mean?

Do hieroglyphics represent any vowels?

How do you know how to read them?

On a separate sheet of paper, write your name in hieroglyphic.

PART 2

Visit:           http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/hieroglyph/hieroglyph4.html

 Name two other types of picture writing

 What does this say?

 Why was writing important?

Why was the Rosetta Stone important?

PART 3:    Vocabulary terms to define:Economy, Rosetta Stone, and  hieroglyphics

PART 4: Visit these sites as time allows:  

Egyptian hieroglyphics and see if you can identify what is written.       http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/play/discover-ancient-egypt/egyptian-hieroglyphics/

Select the Explore tab to see how writing was used in Egypt. (schools, military, etc.)                           http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/home.html

 Good Luck ;-)))

Read The Old Master Scribe Story:  http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/writing/home.html

Write your own hidden message:

http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/egypt/hieroglyphs/

OR

http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/play/discover-ancient-egypt/egyptian-hieroglyphics/

Egyptian Writing                                                

The ancient Egyptians thought it was important to write down information about religion and important events.  So they invented scripts (ways of writing). 

Hieroglyphic writing

Hieroglyphics were carved or painted by the

priests and scribes.  At first Egyptian

hieroglyphics were simply pictures.  They

showed simple things, such as the sun, plants,

parts of the body and animals.  Later the hieroglyphics came to mean more.  A symbol

of the legs not only meant legs, but also walking. An arm not only meant an arm, but also strength.  A symbol of an eye meant first an eye, and an eye with a teardrop meant sadness. This way of writing could not say everything.  For example, the scribes could not write ‘he’ or a person’s name.  They could not show the difference between ‘walk’ or ‘walked’.  So some symbols were chosen to represent sounds.

There are at least 2000 Egyptian hieroglyphs.  

Hieroglyphs showing what someone is doing: below we have five different hieroglyphs which mean 1) a man or, if there were more than one, people; 2) praying; 3) hiding; 4) being tired, 5) dying, a dead enemy.

 Hieroglyphs of agriculture and crafts: below we have five hieroglyphs which mean 1) to loosen the soil, to dig the ground; 2) to cut the crops with a sickle; 3) to measure the cereal crops (the Egyptians grew barley and a cereal called emmet); 4) to crush salt (which came in blocks); this can also mean ‘heavy’; 5) to bake bread (this is a picture of the long shovel which bakers still use to put loaves into a hot oven and to pull them out again).

All of these hieroglyphs can also be used to represent sounds.  The last symbol above, the baking bread symbol, can also mean the sound of the letters rth, or hnr, or hnj.  Vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, u are not shown at all (as they are not shown in modern Arabic or Hebrew writing) so you need to imagine what these combinations sounded like: hnr may have sounded ‘hanur’ but we really do not know.

So you can see that ancient Egyptian is a very, very difficult language to learn to read!

Egyptian Literature 

In addition to keeping records of religious rituals and government actions, the Egyptians wrote many other works from the time of the Old Kingdom.

• collections of wise sayings, such as The Advice of an Egyptian Wise Man, which gave warnings to the king and foretold of better times ahead; 
• love poetry and religious hymns, of which the best known is King Akhenaten’s hymn of praise to Aten, the sun’s disc; 
• stories of seafaring and travel, such as the Story of Sinuhe from the 12th dynasty and the Journey of Unamon from the 20th dynasty. these both tell of voyages to the land of Canaan.  

You will be graded on your completed packet and definitions.

The credit belongs to you for following directions and participating!

I hope that you had fun!