More Hieroglyphics

I recently completed a hieroglyphics for beginners course provided by Oxford University http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php. Alhough I have attended two weekend courses on hieroglyphics in the last few years I thought that a course over ten weeks would be an opportunity to have a continuous learning experience which would hopefully result in greater retention.

I have at long last reached the end of the course book.

One of the things that interests me about hieroglyphs is the interrelationship between the image and the text. The realisation that an analysis of the image and the presentation of the text is essential for a proper understanding of the text itself was enlightening. It gives a whole new meaning to textual analysis. It also made me think how difficult it would be to provide a translation that would do justice to such texts.