Writing in Ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptian writing systems were certainly not for the faint of heart. The writing systems have gone through multiple series throughout the years, but have always consisted of a complex system of symbols. The textbook “An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt” explains that the writing systems can be seen in three main types: hieroglyphs, hieratic, and demotic.

The earliest form, hieroglyphs, were pictographic signs that were used as the most formal script. These symbols would have been used for more religious and mortuary purposes and can be found on (and in) temples and tombs, as well as some religious texts. Hieroglyphs can be separated into two basic types: logograms and phonograms. Logograms are the simplest type with one sign representing a word. Phonograms are more complex and were used phonetically to represent sounds in the spoken language. Phonograms were further broken down by number of consonants into uniconsonantal, biconsonantal, and triconsonantal. Instances of of several uniconsonantal signs used together were often omitted in writing, although they often accompany biconsonantal and triconsonantal signs as phonetic complements. Hieratic writing came about the same time as hieroglyphs but were a much more informal script and was more often written in ink on ostraca. Demotic script developed later in Egypt’s history and was even more informal than hieratic. Demotic contained many abbreviations and was required to be read in word groups rather than individual signs.

Like other cultures with writing systems, Egypt’s writing systems were used for a variety of purposes like legal documents, government records, mortuary texts, tax collection, building planning, instructional texts, letters, and so many more. However, the average Egyptian wouldn’t have known how to read or write since the majority of Egyptians were farmers. Only higher status individuals (such as royal family, officials, army officers, and priests) would have been literate, so individuals known as scribes were needed on all levels of state and local operations. Scribes were professionally trained and would likely have not had a hard time finding work. Due to their ability to understand the complexities of the writing systems, scribes were treated better than common laborers and even held a sort of higher status in society.

Like ancient scribes, many Egyptologists and other scholars today go through several years of training to understand found texts. Unlike the scribes, however, today’s scholars don’t speak the language so a lot of texts are vague as pronunciation of certain words has been lost. A lot of textual information has also been lost to the years and pieces that survive are found just like that: in pieces, leaving much left unknown.