How Hieroglyphs Work

Since we’re talking about the afterlife expectations of our soldier, Sa-Djehuty, all based on that little statue that was discovered at Abydos, we may as well look in more detail at the type of funerary equipment that he might have been buried with. And coffins, nicely inscribed with hieroglyphs, come top of the list.

In this video, I am standing in front of the coffin of another soldier, named Userhat. But before we look at the coffin in detail, we’re going to need to understand a little about the hieroglyphs that are written on it.

In this section, I introduce you to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and look back to how the discovery of the Rosetta stone allowed scholars to crack the code in the first place. In the following steps, I’ll teach you more about how hieroglyphs work, and by the end of it, you’ll be able to translate a few genuine ancient Egyptian words yourself.