Fascinating Hieroglyphics: Discovering, Decoding & Understanding the Ancient Art

by Christian Jacq

For centuries not a person alive could decipher the famed ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then a few experts began to understand how a single figure could be a picture, a symbol, and a sound all at once. You can join the ranks of those who can read hieroglyphs, and even create sentences of your own, with this ingeniously simple guide. It's the most complete introduction available, yet it's amazingly easy to understand. With best-selling author Christian Jacq as your guide, uncover the mystery that baffled the greatest minds of the ages--how the Egyptians first invented hieroglyphics, why it became a forgotten language, and how linguists and other detectives stumbled onto a remarkable code-breaking carving. Best of all you'll learn to read secret messages and inscriptions taken from royal tombs that reveal the profound ideas of these highly evolved cultures. If you can follow a book or tape on a foreign language, you can master the principles of reading hieroglyphics--and reward yourself with valuable insights into a totally different way to communicate with other human beings. 224 pages, 39 b/w illus., 6 x 9. NEW IN PAPERBACK

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Egypt, Egyptology, Language, Historical, Linguistics

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 1994

About the author

Also writes under the names Célestin Valois, J.B. Livingstone, and Christopher Carter.

Christian Jacq is a French author and Egyptologist. He has written several novels about ancient Egypt, notably a five book suite about pharaoh Ramses II, a character whom Jacq admires greatly.

Jacq's interest in Egyptology began when he was thirteen, and read History of Ancient Egyptian Civilization by Jacques Pirenne. This inspired him to write his first novel. He first visited Egypt when he was seventeen, went on to study Egyptology and archaeology at the Sorbonne, and is now one of the world's leading Egyptologists.

By the time he was eighteen, he had written eight books. His first commercially successful book was Champollion the Egyptian, published in 1987. As of 2004 he has written over fifty books, including several non-fiction books on the subject of Egyptology.

He and his wife later founded the Ramses Institute, which is dedicated to creating a photographic description of Egypt for the preservation of endangered archaeological sites.

Between 1995-1997, he published his best selling five book suite Ramsès, which is today published in over twenty-five countries. Each volume encompasses one aspect of Ramesses' known historical life, woven into a fictional tapestry of the ancient world for an epic tale of love, life and deceit.

Jacq's series describes a vision of the life of the pharaoh: he has two vile power-hungry siblings, Shanaar, his decadent older brother, and Dolora, his corrupted older sister who married his teacher. In his marital life, he first has Isetnofret (Iset) as a mistress (second Great Wife), meets his true love Nefertari (first Great Wife) and after their death, gets married to Maetnefrure in his old age. Jacq gives Ramesses only three biological children: Kha'emweset, Meritamen (she being the only child of Nefertari, the two others being from Iset) and Merneptah. The other "children" are only young officials trained for government and who are nicknamed "sons of the pharaoh".

Reviews

[Roberto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apenas un diccionario. Falta más criptografía, sea una breve historia de los hallazgos y de los investigadores, mayor atención al sistema numérico, la evolución de los signos o sus divergencias y, ¿por qué no?, algunas de las interpretaciones más sugerentes e imaginativas aunque hoy en día se consideren fantasiosas. Avezado y ameno autor de novelas históricas, en este libro Christian Jack ofrece un árido trabajo: ni erudito, ni didáctico, ni atractivo.

[Jennifer]

Super interesting. I had no idea how complex hieroglyphics as a language actually was/is. It’s certainly not just a simple pictorial language. Hieroglyphs function on three levels: they are figurative, symbolic AND phonetic. Very cool. They were also able to be read by people thousands of years apart - unlike languages such as English that degenerate in just a hundred or so years. I love how the author was able to take what was basically just a vocabulary list and used it to teach ancient Egyptian history and culture. Great book for beginners!

[Elena Prieto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un libro curioso cuanto menos. Para todo aquel que le guste el tema del Antiguo Egipto, es probable que disfrute de esta obra. Sin embargo, en mi opinión tiene una gran pega: se queda a medias entre ser un libro de alto rigor en cuanto al tema de jeroglíficos y ser un libro enfocado a un público más general inexperto en el tema. Es lo que he sentido a lo largo de toda la lectura, pues observo que gran cantidad de información y símbolos que se muestran no me resultaban muy interesantes porque no me dedico a estudiar este ámbito, pero, a la vez, tampoco he percibido muy meticulosa la manera en la que se expresan los conocimientos sobre esta lengua y esta cultura.

Evidentemente, yo he podido aprender varias cosas porque partía de cero en cuanto al conocimiento de los jeroglíficos, pero considero que para aquellos que ya conozcan sobre el tema, este libro no les va a aportar gran cosa.

De todas maneras, se lee en un santiamén y resulta interesante por el cariño que se ve que el autor ha puesto en mostrar la mejor cara del Antiguo Egipto, para lo cual ayudan las ilustraciones de los símbolos y de algunas fotografías de templos.

[Francisco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Presentación "científica" de los jeroglíficos. No tiene el rigor de un libro académico, y le falta interés como obra de entretenimiento.

[Rob Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ancient Egypt has always held a fascination for me, and thus also their writing. I have made many stabs at learning Hieroglyphs, but have yet to even reach the level of beginner. Nonetheless, I still work at it. This book will not teach you Middle Egyptian (the language Hieroglyphs are written in) but peals back the logic of the symbols and signs. Along the way, you can learn some of the words, but more importantly, you get a glimpse at the underlying culture that created this writing. That culture is what we look back to. It created the pyramids, conquered the Near East, and ultimately caused a civil war that ended the Roman Republic. This book lets you see those people far better than the other numerous tomes I have read. There is no history here, but a people who made history.

[Danko Herrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm giving a four star because of an emotional bound with this book, this edition. It was my first book about hieroglyphs when I was 14 y.o.
Very basic, sometimes silly, and perfect for a teenager.
Today I'm more into more serious stuff but I remember that sensation when first opening this book and shivering of excitement.

[Stella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5⭐

[Robu-sensei · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anyone who is looking for a scholarly work on ancient Egyptian writing will be sorely disappointed, if not outright shocked, with Fascinating Heiroglyphics. A good example of the scientific rigor in this work appears in Chapter 3, "How Do They Work"?

Heiroglyphs abolish time. These signs are beyond fashion; they are heard-wearing and anchored within their peaceful eternity. Their size matters little. Some heiroglyphs are minute, such as when a scribe wrtes them on a papyrus to trace one of the chapters of The Book of the Dead. Others are gigantic, such as the great pyramid of Cheops, which, itself, is a monumental stone heiroglyph.

M. Jacq seems to know his subject, but I can't believe he isn't overinterpreting the symbolism behind many of the pictographs. (Either that, or he has far more insight into the minds of the ancients than one could normally glean from a writing system.)

[Tasja · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh…
Es wäre populärwissenschaftlich ganz okay, vorausgesetzt dass die kleinen Fehler bei der Transliteration/Übersetzung geändert werden würden. Die Grammatik wurde kaum behandelt und ein Großteil des Buches befasste sich nur mit Vokabeln, welche nach Themen geordnet sind. Nett für einen Einstieg, aber nicht weiter zu empfehlen wenn tatsächliches Interesse an dem Thema der Hieroglyphen und speziell der altägyptischen Schrift besteht.

Ich würde 1,5✰ vergeben, aber das geht nicht, also ist es einer. Nett wenn einen das Thema interessiert, aber letztendlich bietet es nur einen groben und oberflächlichen Überblick.