Hieroglyphs from a to Z: A Rhyming Book With Ancient Egyptian Stencils for Kids by Peter Der Manuelian

by Peter der Manuelian

An ABC book showing the relationships between the English alphabet and Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Genres: History, Egypt, Language, Nonfiction, Childrens

Hardcover

First published April 15, 1993

About the author

Peter der Manuelian is the Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology and the Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum.

Peter der Manuelian grew up locally but somehow escaped speaking with a Boston accent. He joined both the NELC and Anthropology Departments in 2010, after teaching Egyptology at Tufts University for ten years. He has also been on the curatorial staff of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, since 1987, and held the position of Giza Archives Project Director there until June 2011 (he is now Founding Director, The Giza Archives). In addition to Giza, his Egyptian archaeological and epigraphic site work includes New Kingdom temples at Luxor (Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago), and the Predynastic site of Naqada.

His primary research interests include ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, epigraphy, the development of mortuary architecture, and the (icono)graphic nature of Egyptian language and culture in general. He has published on diverse topics and periods in Egyptian history, but currently focuses on the third millennium BC, and specifically on the famous Giza Necropolis, just west of modern Cairo. The Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition excavated major portions of the site between 1905 and 1947. Since 2000, the "Giza Archives Project" aims to collect and present online all past, present, and future archaeological activity at Giza (http://www.gizapyramids.org).

Interested in both ancient and modern graphic design-"publishing" in the widest sense of the word-he believes in bringing new technologies into his research and into the classroom. Among his current projects are the publication of elite Giza tombs west of the Great Pyramid, a biography of Harvard archaeologist George A. Reisner, and the development of electronic tools to aid in teaching Egyptian hieroglyphic grammar.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief instruction on how to write and read some hieroglyphics with a history of the decoding using the Rosetta Stone. Complete with activities. Written by a museum curator who actually worked on the pyramids at Thebes.

[Hannahcarlson7875gmail.Com]

This book teachers children their ABC and also Hieroglyphs. Under each letter, the book teachers children how to write that letter in Hieroglyphs, and also explains that some of our letters that we have weren't always around.

[Vanessa Kuffner]

I thought this was a really cool way to show the alphabet, they used a lot of uncommon words and animals that kids might not otherwise know about. I think it is a good way to break from the mold of typical words we use to represent letters in the alphabet.

[Becky B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teaches some Egyptian hieroglyphs, specifically those eventually used to stand for single sounds that coordinate with the English alphabet. The back of the book includes messages in hieroglyphics for readers to decode and stencils so they can make their own messages.

For some reason I had only ever heard about the first phase of hieroglyphic language, picture representation for a complete object/thought and not the second development of symbols to stand for certain letters. So I learned multiple things from this book, not only the evolution of hieroglyphs and how they were used in language but also the ones that correspond to the English alphabet (a couple are repeated because the ancient Egyptians didn't have a v and didn't differentiate between soft e and i, which is actually rather similar to Korean - another alphabet I know - so I caught on to this idea very quickly). I love codes and the puzzle of learning foreign alphabets, so this was exactly my kind of book. Each letter also tells a bit about the importance of the object in the hieroglyph to ancient Egyptians, so you get to know that too. Very informative and fun, without being overwhelming. Definitely a tool to be used in ancient Egypt studies with kids.