Decoding Egyptian Hieroglyphs: How to read the secret language of the Pharaohs

Having read reviews on several books about identifying Egyptian hieroglyphs, I decided on this one and checking the buying options, I purchased it as a used book from an Amazon vendor and to my great surprise the book came, not as used, but beautifully BRAND NEW. Nicely written and finely illustrated with great photographs, I am going to be enjoying this book for a long time to come. Thanks Amazon....and Thank you Thriftbooks - Dallas.

I loved this book the minute I saw it. Lovely book with beautiful illustrations. This is important when learning hieroglyphs. or even if just interested in knowing more about them. Its a great start to learning them as the illustrations help so much. Some books of this category could no doubt be very off-putting and dry as dust. On the contrary, with this book as a guide, I'm sure anyone would find the subject fascinating. The material is divided into categories such as, Gods, weapons of war, jewelry etc etc, and how the hieroglyphs connect and are used in different ways. Its all very interesting. Highly recommend.

I have a few students who are very much into Egypt,so with the book I have been asking them to discover and write their names.It is so pleasing when they have done the job.The next thing I will get them to do is learn and write statements.Also I find those wooden models I bought a lot of fun for them.They make up their own stories with them.

I speak from an amateur interest as a linguist-sinologist in-university-training. I've probably leafed through all the mainstream pedagogical grammars and academic linguistic or disciplinary syntheses and even had my hand at the language from time to time over the course of 10 years. This book is totally awesome! Other writers should take the hint! Sure, Allen's book covers most the relevant syntactic and morphological concerns, but it's boring as hell and readers put it down after Chapter 3 because they can't stand his lifeless drone. This book sings, dances, and even pulls a nice hand of pedagoggery. What this has and the other lack is pictures, pictures, pictures; and in techni-color! It takes larger-than-life or smaller-than-pixie works of Egyptian art and "pop-up videos" a few choice glyph or glyph-set words. This is what Egyptian should be. It's like somebody's taking hints from the Mayan Glyph-Doctors. Linda Schele was what the picto-semanto-phonetic needed: a friendly face with the ol' "smells and bells" as goyim-na say. Sigh. Here's what's going on. Unbeknownst to you, probably, there's a host of (about 20) neat historic languages out there which you could learn and use easily and gain immensely thereby. However, scholars just lack the insight (or rather, exsight) to prepare beautiful, engaging, yet palatably scholarly-rigourous works on them. So the voices of the wise Ancients go unheard. Of these, Latin gets the most press and Egyptian comes in second. Yet all the entries have considerable, scholar-derived flaws. No one's even heard of Hittite Hieroglyphic or Archaic Chinese. Yet they could teach young people (and old) both secular wisdom and grammar ("language arts ability"). But humans are too uncreative to see this. They want their lives to be miserable, on some level. Even the Hebrew and Greek is really just packaged for geezers who are mostly scared by Cuneiform, Modern Japanese, and Classical Mayan. A guy like Mr. Benner of [...] makes it fun and irresistable and people like this have their choice of stones, due to their excess of mummy-dust (The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, 1-star review). What we need are coffee-table books with interlinear translation, multi-approach sign lists, English-Language/Language-English glossaries, and lots of fun, beauty, and truth! So, if you're good at skipping over uninteresting insights, here's a treat: If thou seekest a pleasant into, this is the book. If thou seekest a more comprehensive treatment of the language which is likewise pleasant and continuable, choose ye Budge's EASY LESSONS IN EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. Sadly, outside of hopefully me, the world has only one good teacher of ancient languages and it is Budge. If thou seekest a most comprehensive treatment but can dispense with some pleasantries, every dollar is well-invested in Sir Gardiner's EGYPTIAN GRAMMAR. Why is it that Gardiner and this McDermott have an English-Egyptian section and Allen doesn't? Because G and McD are cool and Allen, well, read his book and see how he addresses his readers... What Sir G's book offers hands-above is a Sign List (Zeichenliste) by topic and shape. This is actually a near-indispensable learning tool for the quick-witted and efficient user of time. Allen has the same thing, but his is painfully small and un-welcoming. Master G's book is like a Family Bible at 9 by 8 and bigger. Compfy. All these books are terribly out of date, but they'll keep you going. Unlike the death-knell of Egyptian studies, Allen's MIDDLE EGYPTIAN. It's got all the latest grammar, but it's designed for professors who don't know how to teach (which is most of them) and want a big name and semester-schedule organization. For readers, I highly recommend Budge's THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD : THE HIEROGLYPHIC TRANSCRIPT OF THE PAPYRUS OF ANI. It's got word and morpheme breaks, interlinear and prose translation, and a few kicks (no sign list, but that's okay). There's a million other books, but they're mostly not so serious (like this DECODING here) but also super boring. If you can spare the extra money, knock yourself out. I found HOW TO READ EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS to be organized poorly, though replete with neat-o examples. HIEROGLYPHICS WITHOUT MYSTERY is also flashy yet meaningful and third to this DECODING and BUDGE is EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS FOR EVERYONE, which is '70s funky but really engaging, if not even as semi-comprehensive as DECODING. One last note: Do you want to learn Egyptian pretty good? Find friends and friendly grad students (like me), friendly amateurs. Get a teacher somewhere if you can. If you're a kid, hit up your parents, though likely they're too close-minded. While your interest lasts, feed it. Go for the texts first and find beautiful ones. Use the grammar parts as mere fuel for the fire. The biggest hurdle here is the 150 or so essential hieroglyphs and then not getting hung up on memorizing words. All you need to start is know what order words and word-parts come in and how to look them up in a dictionary. Then find some texts you like, and start a-plowin. Consider starting or joining a "living Egyptian" group. And if it's too much for now, walk away. It's not all about having fun, and you'll eventually have to put up with some boring, but it should be funky and cool. Make it so and buy books like this that share your view! (Oh, and I've heard that there's coffee-table books with visible inscriptions. They're glossy and beautiful, buy them. Hope you enjoyed my review, here's a random plug for Jesus as Lover of the Human Race, God, and Messiah.)

I have always loved all things Egyptian. This book is really good for a beginner like me. I also love the beautiful pictures.

I was new to hieroglyphics and had no intention of becoming an expert in them. The book gave me insights into how they were used -- I had no idea that they were phonetic based before reading this. I found it inspiring as an artist. I created bookmarks for friends with their names in my interpretation of hierglyphs.

Bought as a Christmas gift. Hope daughter enjoys it. Very well priced.

This is not a book for beginners. It is too full of mistakes, contradictions and academic hubris to rely on. The copy editor of this work should be boiled in oil. For example - the glyph for lasso is called a brazier. Albeit, some of the phrases are of value and the pictures are first-rate. On page 127, an inscription is shown and the author berates the long-dead scribe for having done it 'improperly'! Great heavenly days! Intermediate and advanced students of ME will delight in testing their knowledge by conducting a mistake 'treasure hunt'. But others should look elsewhere.

I really could do with a year (at least) to become fluent in Hieroglyph decoding. If you are interested in Ancient Egypt this book will keep you enthralled for hours at a time. A very good and well produced book.

Husband is really enjoying it. Nice book.

今年2月にエジプト旅行に行くので購入した。 説明だけでなく写真が多く、写真集としても楽しい内容になっている。 ヒエログリフに関しても実物の遺跡の写真に線を引っ張ってあって、ここはこういう意味ですよという説明があり、眺めているだけでも面白い。これからエジプトに行く方には、こういった書籍でラムセス２世のカルテューシュを２通り覚えて行く事をお勧めする。 この書籍だけを頼りに駆け足で巡る遺跡のヒエログリフを全て読めるかと聞かれれば、数ヶ月前に購入し徹底的に頭に入れればねと答える。行きの飛行機の中で５〜６時間掛けて一通り読んだだけで基本形については分かったが、いざ遺跡を前にするとIdeogramなのかPhonogramであるかは判別が難しい。（エジプトの象形文字は時にIdeogramとなり、時にPhonogramとなる） あえて原書を購入したが正解だった。流石にイギリスに支配されていた国だけあって英語を話せる人間が多かったように思うし、カイロ考古学博物館の表示もアラビア語と英語だ。 そこでビジネス英語では到底お目にかかれない、この本に出てくるmortise(ほぞ穴）、tenon(ほぞ）、lasso（輪縄）、basalt（玄武岩）、vizier（主席大臣）といった単語を調べておくと役に立つ事もある。 エジプトのヒエログリフを読むと、Phonogramだけの英語と比較し文化の発達と言語体系に関して素人なりに考えさせられる事が多い。IdeogramとPhonogramがそれぞれ向いている学問の分野があるように思えてくる。古代エジプト人は神への畏敬の念をヒエログリフで伝えている。それはこの書籍を一読しただけで伝わると思う。

Good as elementary.

Beautiful book.