Graphic Communications in

ANCIENT EGYPT

By: Ms. Kiesha Bustamante

ANCIENT EGYPT• A civilization located in northeastern Africa

• “Kemet” – “Black Land”• The preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world

• Egypt depended on the Nile

Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for more than 3000 years.

Religion permeated throughout its existence and was integral in their society.

It transpired in their art, architecture, writing system, and general way of life.

Can you see the similarities?

Hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphics

What are Hieroglyphs?

The Ancient Egyptian system of writing in which pictorial symbols are used to represent objects, ideas or sound and/or both

The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek word hiero ‘holy’ and glypho ‘writing’.

Have a close relation to the fine arts.

- inscribed in stone, metal, wood etc. (usually in relief technique or painted)

Where did it come from?• The designation

'hieroglyphics' is a Greek word (“sacred carving”)

• The Egyptians referred to hieroglyphs as ”medu-netjer”/ 'the god's words’

• They believed writing had been given to them by the great god Thoth.

What was its purpose?

The earliest purpose of writing was for trade - to convey information about goods, prices, purchases.

Writing was also used for religious purposes and was an important part of tomb decoration. Scribes wrote spells in a Pharaoh's tomb to help him get to the afterlife.

• When early Egyptian scribes cannot express the word in visual form, they devised a rebus using pictures for sounds to write the desired word.

These hieroglyphs mean bee, leaf, sea, and sun. As rebuses (using the English language) they could also

mean belief and season.

rebus (symbols representing words and syllables with the same or similar sound as the object depicted)

How was it written?

MENTI.COM

How was it written?

• It could be written in almost any direction; left to right, right to left, or top to bottom

• Reading direction is determined by direction the figures are facing.

• Columns are read down as we read down a page.

When archeologists first studied Egyptian hieroglyphs, they thought each symbol represented a word…

…but it is a actually a complex combination.

A symbol can represent a word, sound, syllable, concept or a determinative.

In some cases, the symbol represents a full word. These symbols are called pictograms, logograms or ideograms. These symbols

can also represent a sounds or syllables which are called phonograms.

Egyptians also added determinatives or “sense signs” to their script. They were often placed at the end of a word to clarify meaning of that word. It has no sound or phonetic value.

Determinative: god Sun god“re” or “sun”

What did they write on?• Clay, stone, wood

• Papyrus - thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt

The development of Papyrus was a major step forward in Egyptian visual communication.

How was it made?

Hieroglyphs were comprised of an 'alphabet' of 24 basic consonants and 800 different symbols to express meaning precisely.

These all had to be memorized and used correctly.

Scribes were highly respected and privileged.

The scribes worked according to strict rules and had to be highly skilled.

They are regarded as prestigious and were exempted from taxes and from entering the army.

Scribal training takes 12 years. Majority of scribal students were boys from middle or upper class families.

• Scribes carried a wooden palette that identified them as such.

• One end has at least 2 depressions to hold the ink cakes or pigments

• A slot in the middle held the brushes.

BOOK OF THE DEADA collection of spells written on papyrus sheets or on the walls of the tomb.

Accompanied by illustrations custom-made for the deceased individual.

The manuscript was laboriously made by hand which made the document unique and one-of-a-kind.

The Egyptians were the first people to produce illuminated manuscripts in which words and pictures were combined to communicate information

a

Ani, The Scribe.

Hieroglyphic script - ideograms, phonograms and determinatives

Hieratic script – a much more simpler & cursive script used by priests for religious and sacred texts

Demotic script – known as “popular script” and was used for legal, business, and literary texts.

Coptic script - the last stage of the development of Egyptian writing that was adapted from the Greek alphabet

The written language underwent a series of development to suit the need of a more proper communication and improve their means of recording their daily activities.

Egyptian Visual Identification

• The Egyptians used cylinder seals & proprietary marks/trademarks which came from the Sumerians.

• They used both forms of identification for items such as pottery.

• ‘Button seal’ or simple stamp seals were in use in Egypt mainly in the late Old Kingdom and First Intermediate Period

Egyptian Visual Identification• Carved scarab emblems were commonly used as identification seals

• (Twelfth Dynasty - 1991 BC – 1802 BC)

• Oval stones are sculpted like a scarab beetle

• It was engraved with hieroglyphic inscriptions and used as a seal

Scarab of lkhnaton and Nefertiti, c. 1370 BCE.

The Rosetta Stone

In the year 1799, when Napoleon’s troops were conducting an expedition in Egypt, they unearthed a black slab bearing an inscription in 2 languages and 3 scripts.

Egyptian hieroglyphics

Egyptian demotic script

Ancient GreekIt was the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs.

• It was cracked by Jean-François Champollion, the Father of Egyptology

• Currently, it is on display at the British Museum

The Rosetta Stone

• Was originally part of a temple that Romans demolished

• It took almost 20 years to decipher

• What’s written on the stone?• A decree by the king

The Decline of Hieroglyphs...During the Ptolemaic Dynasty (332-30 BCE) and the Roman Period (30 BCE-395 CE), Greek and Roman culture became increasingly influential in Egypt.

Christianity started to replace some of the traditions of Egyptian religion towards the 2nd century CE. Christianized Egyptians developed the Coptic alphabet, the final stage in the development of the Egyptian language, which was used to represent their speech.Ptolemy I Soter

Ancient Egyptian Influence on Graphic Design

Without the development of the Ancient Egyptian language, other languages that were inspired by this civilization might not have come to pass, and language as we know it might not even exist.

The written word is the most commonly used form of graphic information, and its existence came to be through the languages of the past.

References• Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2016). Meggs' History of Graphic Design. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

• Ancient Egypt. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ducksters.com/history/ancient_egypt/hieroglyphics_examples_alphabet.php

• Learn Hieroglyphs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bibalex.org/learnhieroglyphs/lesson/LessonDetails_En.aspx?l=20

• How The Rosetta Stone Unlocked Hieroglyphics [Video file]. (2015, November 4). Retrieved from https://youtu.be/yeQ-6eyMQ_o

• Mark, J. J. (2020, July 25). Ancient Egyptian Writing. Retrieved from https://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Writing/