Hieroglphs.net
Founded in 1998, this site has been on the web continuously since then. I created it to house some unique and fun web-based tools related to Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs. Along the way I’ve also created some related print materials. (Here’s a link to the live site: Hieroglyphs.net)
Web-based Tools
The most interesting tool, I think, is the “Compose” tool, in which the user selects one of sixteen sentence structures, then selects words to use in that structure. The user then gets to see the sentence written in hieroglphs, with each hieroglyphic word’s corresponding English word indicated, along with their transliterations and the identifying code for each hieroglyph in the sentence.
The “Name” tool is also fun, and enables a user to write a name in hierogylphs (and optionally in a cartouche), and select any or all of the various honorific titles the royalty of ancient Egypt used in writing their names. Importantly, and non-trivially, the person’s name is entered in English, and software I wrote converts it internally into a phonetic representation that is then spelled using hieroglyphs. This is different from every other hieroglyph name writing tool in that all others simply substitute a hieroglph for each letter in the name, without regard to the phonetics involved.
There’s a “Love Notes” tool that combines features of the Compose and Name tools to allow one to write little love notes in hieroglyphs.
Of course, there’s a searchable dictionary here as well that allows fairly complex searches from hieroglyphs to English and from English to hieroglyphs.
Finally, the “Write” tool enables a user to write in hieroglyphs by entering identification codes for each hieroglyph and arranging them using a format know as Manuel de Codage.
Related Print Materials
Associated with the website are two puzzle books. Years ago, I also made and sold hieroglyph flashcards on the site. These are all discussed further below.
The Awesome Book of Hieroglyphs Crosswords
I used scripting in Adobe InDesign to make this from data files I generated in Perl. (InDesign uses Javascript for its scripting.) The data files contained all the information necessary to lay out each of the included 101 crossword puzzles. The winged solar disk, at the top of each page is one I designed and rendered in Maya.
The object of the puzzles is to recognize the meaning of each clue in hieroglyphs. To help with this there’s a small hieroglyphs-to-English dictionary at the end of the book. So, for example, the clue for 13-Across in the puzzle shown can be found on the first page of the dictionary (also shown), in the third line from the bottom. The meaning is “vine,” which is then entered into the crossword puzzle.
This is an easy and pleasant way to learn approximately 400 Middle Egyptian hieroglyphic words.
This puzzle book is still available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The Breathtaking Book of Hieroglyph Find-A-Words
As was the case with the crosswords book, I used scripting in Adobe InDesign to make this one from data files I generated in Perl. The data files contained all the information necessary to lay out each of the included 101 word search puzzles and their solutions (which are printed on the back side of each page).
This puzzle book also is still available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Hieroglyph Flashcards
Like the puzzle books, but created before them, were the hieroglyph flashcards. Each set included 950 flashcards with hieroglyphs on one side and explanatory material on the other. The packaging was designed in Photoshop and incorporated the hieroglyph fonts I created (based on those used in Sir Alan Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar) and that I have used throughout the website and other printed materials.
These flashcards are no longer available for purchase.