Hieroglyphics

(Image taken from: www.channel4.com/.../G/ great_excavations/treasure.html)



Now you may be thinking “what in the world do hieroglyphics have to do with codes?” but actually, without code breakers, we may not have figured out how to interpret this language so quickly! Hieroglyphics would be what we call an ancient script. This language is not spoken anymore, and this type of writing is not used anymore. In fact, it has been so long since this language has been written, that no one has practiced it in more than just a few years. These symbols obviously stood for something, we just didn’t know what. This is the same problem we run into with a code. We know that these letters or numbers that don’t make sense to us make sense to somebody. This is a code breaker’s job, to find out what they mean. Hieroglyphics were eventually broken by using a few different techniques. First, there was the use of the Rosetta Stone, which most of us have heard about. This stone contained the same writing in three different languages, hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. This would have been the key to the language, however, the stone was damaged and each sample of writing was damaged in a different area. Making comparison between the three next to impossible. This is where the code breakers went to work. They discovered something within the text called a cartouche. A cartouche is a circle that is around a certain amount of characters in hieroglyphics. The code breakers took a guess that these cartouches would be around the names of important people within the community and also the names of gods. It turns out that they were correct. From these things along with others, the code breakers were able to figure out this language and translate it for us. Now we are able to read about these people and what was going on in their lives during the time they wrote these things.

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