I want to focus my research on the language and hieroglyphics of Egyptians. “Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c. 4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing. Proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called “Scorpion I” (Naqada IIIA period, c. 33rd century BC) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa’ab) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette (c. 31st century BC). The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa’ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000” (Mattesich). I always wanted to see how these certain images were created and what the significance of them. It is kind of fascinating that Egyptians created their own language using images to express words and numbers. I will focus on how certain symbols came about and how they got their meaning. Whose job would it be? Who would write it on tombs? Who was able to learn it? Was it used more often by commoners or wealthy people? There were also other ways to speak, which are called child systems. I would speak about when the scriptures decided to stop. How modern Egyptians decided to leave that behind and start a new way to express words and letters. Currently, Egypitans are speaking Egyptian Arabic. This was formed once they decided to stop Coptic. It changed after the Muslim conquest. However, it is still used in the Coptic church and only some people continue to speak it today. It is pretty interesting and I’m also curious if there are people still teaching hieroglyphics in private or in schools. To make it a fun twist, I would like to include the topic of pseudoarchaeology and how they mistaken some symbols for extraterrestrial writing. It is an ongoing battle between pseudoarchaeologists and archaeologists to prove that Egyptians did everything tourists see when they visit and not created by aliens who helped the Egyptians build monuments. Thus, I found a plethora of websites that teach all different systems that were created so it would be great to dig deeper into that.

Richard Mattessich (2002). “The oldest writings, and inventory tags of Egypt”. Accounting Historians Journal. 29 (1): 195–208. JSTOR 40698264