Customer Reviews

Fascinating Hieroglyphics: Discovering, Decoding & Understanding the Ancient Art

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Despite other reviews of this book, I have read it and believe that Jacq achieves all of his basic aims. Does he not state on the first page that you will NOT be able to read hieroglyphs with ease by reading the book? Rather, you would gain a basic understanding of the language, complexity and history involved. Jacq uses accessible language and the odd touch of humour to make his book both entertaining and informative. The naive expectations that others have entered a book such as this with have resulted in it not being properly represented. Therefore, I am setting the record straight by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it most beneficial!

I recently completed the above named book and am still in the dark on decoding the Hieroglyphics. However,I did come away with how complex the ancient Egyptians were. I will once again tackle the book and probably walk away with the basic fundamentals of Hieroglyphics. I recently visited the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and they had an exhibit on Ancient Egypt, and to my surprise, I was able to decipher a small portion of the hieroglyphics.

Sure this isn't an in-depth textbook on hieroglyphics, but it is a neat little book that's is probably one of the finest introductions for someone who doesn't want to study for years, but just wants a good general overview of how the Egyptian language works. I recommend it.

Fascinating Hieroglyphics is an inferior work. Despite the claims to "teach the reader how to read hierogliphics", the book's author merely throws more and more symbols at you, seemingly without any organization or concept, rather than through any useful system, and later refers the reader to one of the more respectable works in the field. The "alphabet" in the beginning barely begins to cover a small portion of the Egyptian monophonics, and the hieroglyphs that ARE shown are merely noted for one or two of their multi-faceted meanings, rather than revealing the leading concept of the symbol. If you want to gain some basic grounding in reading hieroglyphs, choose some other work. I would refer you to Rossini's Hieroglyphs, unfortunately out of print, which actually tackles the subject head on rather than weaves its way out of the obligations it puts up.

Hyroglyphic studies could be daunting, especially to the beginner burdened with having to memorise such a vast number of biliteral signs and deterninatives. The process could become somewhat tedious. This book suceeds in keeping the student interested and motivated.


Jansen Standt (New York)