Writing Late Egyptian Hieratic

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Writing Late Egyptian Hieratic A Beginner's Primer
by Sheldon Lee Gosline
Contents __________________________________________ i-xxv.....Introduction xxvi-xxxi.Chinese Abstract 1-97......Lessons 1.......1:The Introduction 4.......2:The Subject of the Tale 7.......3:The Request 12......4:The Divine Response 15......5:The King's Response 18......6 & 7:The Royal Birth 23......8:The Birth of a Male Child 25......9 & 10:The Arrival of the Hathors 29......11:The Fated Quotation 31......12:The Fate Addenda 34......13:Prophecy Heard 37......14:Prophecy Reported 40......15:King's Response	ORDER NOW Have you ever wanted to learn how to write like an Egyptian? This book gives step by step instructions, so get your brush out! CN 22-1213/K Paperback Price $21.00 US Single Orders Volume Orders Excerpt Below
43......16 to 18:King's Plan to Solve His Problem 53......19:The Child Grows Up 56......20:Rooftop Location 58......21:What He Saw 60......22:The Dog Had an Owner 62......23:They Were Walking 64......24:The Prince Talks to His Servant 66......25:What the Prince Asks 68......26:What the Servant Answered 70......27:The Prince Responds 72......28:King's Response 74......29:The Servant Reports to the King 77......30 & 31:The King Response 82......32:They Bring the Dog 84......33:The Passage of Time 86......34:The Child Becomes an Adult 89......35:The Prince Writes to the King 91......36:The Prince's Question 93......37:The Prince's Motto "Seize the Day" 96......38:The Prince's Realization of Destiny 98......Reference Sign List Lessons 110.....Quizzes 122.....Grammatical Index 124.....Table of Contents The Author Prof. Sheldon Lee Gosline developed this unique approach to teaching Egyptian hieratic while teaching the subject at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations in Changchun, China. The approach is a blend of traditional hieratic studies and an appreciation for the need to learn by doing.

EXCERPTS


For most students of Egyptology, hieratic, the cursive form of Egyptian writing, is learned long after the basics of Middle Egyptian grammar have been mastered.  The study of hieratic texts is a specialty subject within a specialized field of ancient language study.  So, it may seem at first odd to think of writing a "primer" for the study of hieratic.  However, hieratic was the central aspect of the literacy of ancient Egypt.  The false impression that Egyptian texts were written predominantly in hieroglyphs is seriously misleading and only due to the modern scholarly convention of publishing and teaching hieratic texts in an artificial hieroglyphic transcription.  The need for this current work to correct our approach to ancient Egyptian language is therefore quite obvious and long overdue.

The invention of a script (by the late fourth millennium BCE) marks a quantum leap forward in human cultural development. Time and space cease to be barriers to the transmission of knowledge and information. To grasp the magnitude of this advance, try to imagine our culture today without writing (for even today's visual media and high technology communications depend on written drafts and scripts). It is impossible to imagine any schools or universities, or scientists conducting and reporting research.  Governments could not govern nor could the civil service function without the written word.

Ancient Egyptians knew that writing was the mainstay of civilized life. A seated scribe holding a papyrus roll was one of the most popular subjects in their art, and even the highest officials chose to be depicted this way. Scribes was revered and honored, as a manifestation of the god of writing Thoth, for the early Egyptians recognized that writing was the foundation of ordered life and government and, to some extent, transcended death itself. With writing, ideas, discoveries, wisdom and experience no longer died with the individual, but could be transmitted through endless generations, right down to us.  Indeed, we still read the fine literature, religious and scientific texts of these early scribes.

Writing was not one, but two inventions. First, the script itself - a comprehensive series of signs made by a series of brush strokes, capable of representing all the words or sounds of human speech. Then a second remarkable invention was the technological development of materials (papyrus, pen, ink) to record, transmit and preserve the script along with an education system to pass the system on, from generation to generation.  Likely, the Egyptian school was called or located in "The House of Life" (Per-Ankh), for writing bestowed a kind of immortality. As one Egyptian scribe proclaimed, "(authors' names) are still preserved because of their books... and their memory lasts to the limits of eternity".  Hieratic is what Egyptian scribes were taught ... a series of brush strokes to express thoughts and reach eternity.

Click HERE to read about Prof. Gosline's most recent research on the famous Egyptian beauty, Queen Nefertiti, of the Amarna Period!