An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Vol. 2: With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets [Paperback]

Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1978

Volume 2 of the monumental work containing about 25,000 words and terms that occur in texts ranging from 3000 B.C. to 600 A.D. Each entry consists of a transliteration of the word, the word in hieroglyphs, and the meaning in English. Indispensable to serious student.

Product Details

• Paperback: 733 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (May 1, 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486236161
• ISBN-13: 978-0486236162
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #973,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #49 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Geography

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buyer Beware!, January 11, 2001

By 

Kat K. Munro (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, Vol. 2: With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets (Paperback)

This two book set has some merits as an extensive base of heiroglyphic information. It is put together in a fairly easy to use format. HOWEVER!

Please be wary that this is the second half of the complete book. The first volume, or the first half of the dictionary, is not available for purchase. Before you think of purchasing this title, be sure that you have found the first volume, otherwise the back half is more than useless. I purchased this thinking I would easily find the first half, but was proved wrong.

Due to the outdated nature of this material, I recommend you find a more contemporary dictionary of Ancient Egyptian that is in its entirety.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beware! This work is out of date!, May 5, 2003

By 

Mr. Protocol (Venice, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary : With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets (Vol 1) (Paperback)

This book is very, very old. There's nothing wrong with the scholarship in this book - Budge was no nut case - but about 10% of what's in here is flat wrong because it is outdated. We've learned a considerable amount since the days of Budge. Use Gardiner's Middle Egyptian Grammar, E. O. Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, and/or Allen's grammar. Budge is still useful, but only for advanced students who know enough to know which parts are wrong. For heaven's sake, if you're just starting out, avoid this book!

85 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beware of Budge!, February 22, 2001

By 

absent_minded_prof (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary : With an Index of English Words, King List, and Geographical List with Indexes, List of Hieroglyphic Characters, Coptic and Semitic Alphabets (Vol 1) (Paperback)

This book contains many hieroglyphs, and offers translation keys, but...

Let me just warn people that real archaeologists, real Egyptologists don't have a whole lot of respect for the author of this book anymore. A lot of conventions in translation have sort of moved on since his time. In the movie "Stargate," they make fun of him a little. They do this because, in the 21st century, people don't really use his writings anymore. You need to be very careful of anything Budge says.

Look for "Egyptian Grammar" by Sir Alan Gardiner. That's the standard textbook, used by real Egyptologists. The magazine KMT is good to know about, too. It's all about ancient Egypt, and is easy to find online.

If you enjoy this type of puzzle-solving, let me recommend a few titles. "The Decipherment of Linear B," by John Chadwick, "Breaking the Maya Code" by Michael Coe, and "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries" by David Ulansey are all still in print. "Forgotten Scripts" by Cyrus Gordon, and "Voices in Stone" by Ernst Doblhofer are harder to find, but if you ask your local librarian to search for them using interlibrary loan services, he or she will probably find them. It's really worth it... Also, there are still a few ancient scripts out there that no one has deciphered yet. The Indus Valley Script, the Easter Island Script, and the Meroitic script are three of them. The Meroitic script could shed light someday on the issue of how much contact there was between Ancient Egypt and pre-historic Africa. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, at ..., has the best collection around on Meroe, and Meroitic, if anyone's interested. A good book for that script is "Ancient African Civilizations," edited by Stanley Burstein, which contains several useful chapters.

Well, happy deciphering to you!