Raised Heiroglyphs

 

Highly detailed raised relief hieroglyphs on the White Chapel of Senusret I at Karnak (Middle Kingdom). Photo: Dr. Amy Calvert

Hieroglyphs in Egypt were considered as many different things. Hieroglyphs were classified as small pieces of art at times, but they were also a way for Egyptians to communicate with each other. In almost all instances text accompanied all of the scenes. Scenes were typically considered the art portion of the communication. The scenes always told a story of what the event was and what happened. Many of the events could be interpreted in many different ways based on the reader, thus the reasoning accompanying the scene with text. The text was typically on the back pillar and elaborated significantly on the events taking place. A lot of the hieroglyphs are “phonetic sounds. Some, however, are logographic, meaning they stand for an object or concept.” 

 

Most of the hieroglyphs were raised for a reason. By raised I mean that they were three dimensional, similar to how braille is written. Kircher believed that by having them raised it represented an abstract way of communication rather than it being taught as a language. This was quite important because it is how the Egyptians viewed communication. Through this Kircher believed that Egyptians believed in an ancient theological tradition that fore shadowed the same belief system as Christianity. He believed this to be a tradition and thought to use hieroglyphs as a form to understand the belief system. With hieroglyphs they blur the lines of scenery (imagery) between lines of text. According to smarthistory, “the name of a figure in the text on a statue will regularly omit the determinative (an unspoken sign at the end of a word that aids identification–for example, verbs of motion are followed by a pair of walking legs, names of men end with the image of a man, names of gods with the image of a seated god, etc.) at the end of the name.” Like the image above there are words at the end that truly help describe the scene and that text communicates to the reader what the individual creating the scene meant. 

 

Link to the art work itself: https://smarthistory.org/ancient-egyptian-art/