As much as language is spoken it is written and instead of learning Egypt’s most widely spoken language today I thought it would be fun to explore the puzzles that lie in hieroglyphics. Used by the Ancient Egyptians in a combination of logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements one of the earliest inscriptions was on the Narmer Palette, found during the excavations at Hierakonpolis (Kawm al-Ahmar) amongst several others in different locations as noted in Wikipedia. If further study of hieroglyphics is what you’re looking to get into start there. Right now I’m just going to dive into things.
Today’s letter is a character in the Hieroglyphic alphabet used in Ancient Egypt:
placenta – represents kh and pronounced like Scotch ‘loch’
Now to me this looks more like a vent from an air conditioning unit, but seeing how the Ancient Egyptians didn’t have metal vents or recycled air filtering through their homes this probably does resemble a placenta. But you’ll need a lot more tools than this small piece of information. Take this next example for instance.
When a set of characters hands, lions, or watering jugs a.k.a alphabet is placed together they create words like the one above which says GADLING. National Geographic and Virtual Egypt are both fabulous resources for generating words in hieroglyphics. This Great Scott website is also a great place to visit to better build your skills in writing this very ancient and cool lang.