Understanding Hieroglyphs: A Quick and Simple Guide [Hardcover]

Hilary Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1993

A handbook which explains the meaning of hundreds of the most commonly used Egyptian hieroglyphs by means of simple tables, examples from monuments, documents and museum exhibits, and explains the significance of the terms used. First published in 1993.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Michael Omara (September 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854791648
• ISBN-13: 978-1854791641
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,332,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A key to the past, June 9, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Understanding Hieroglyphs: A Quick and Simple Guide (Hardcover)

I often take sections of Wilson's book with me to museums as she has arranged common phrases into charts, rather like a tourist's phrase book, and this helps in translating the basic terminology. This book also has a bit more narrative and history than the other three basic hieroglyph books I own, and therefore would recommend it for those who want just a bit of hieroglyph training with their Egyptian history.

The illustrations are nice, and the maps are good and useful. The chapter headings are arranged topically, rather than in linguistic-grammatical fashion. Here, instead of learning verbs, nouns, sentence structure, etc. for their own sake, you will be introduced to personal names, royal names, priesthood language, time-keeping language, etc. For most people, this will prove an easier and more accessible entry into Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphs are different in character from most modern languages, and certainly from modern Western language. This intuitive book helps remove some of the mystery.

The one drawback to this volume is the lack of systematic grammatical information. However, as most people don't need to go into that level of depth, this volume makes a perfect amateur's companion.