How Egyptian Writing Came to Be

How Egyptian writing came to be Long, long ago the Egyptians like the
Chinese drew pictures to record everything their pharaohs did. Special
scribes drew their pharaoh sitting on his fine throne with a whole lot
of his slaves and subjects in clean white loin cloths standing in a row
all sideways as the ancient ones had good easy to draw profiles. The
woolly hair of the Nubian slaves could be pressed down to the right
shape for the profile. Each slave carried something and the pictures
looked very decorative and pretty but they needed a lot of papyrus and
a lot of paint, black for the outlines and colours to fill in. The
scribes took days to finish each picture and sometimes months when they
had to record the week long festivals. Each animal, slave, each gift
and every detail had to be painted in besides each movement of the
pharaoh meant another scene. No one could be left out of any scene
drawn. It was a mercy that when the Pharaoh became Ra he took on a
stiff pose and moved very little. Scribes started young and spend all
their time painting that they ended up unable to sit up straight or
tolerate the bright Egyptian sunlight when they went to the banks of
the Nile to bathe. Now there was a little boy who lived very near banks
of the Nile, just as all the ancient Egyptians did. Like all children
he loved drawing pictures but his father was a sickly farmer with a
dozen children and so couldn't afford to barter farm products for
papyrus rolls for him to paint. He there fore spent all his spare time
drawing pictures with a stick for a stylus on the sandy banks of the
Nile. The little boy being the brightest of the brood was fondly called
little Sun by his parents and Sun he remained to all in the village.
Little Sun was one day drawing pictures on the banks of the river when
a royal boat with the princesses, sisters of the pharaoh and their
maids dropped anchor to enjoy the fresh breezes of the Nile and pluck
some of the tall papyrus to make toys with. They saw the boy drawing
pictures on the sandy bank of the river and were really impressed. "How
beautifully he draws!" they declared, "even better than the court
artist. Why don't we take him back with us?" They asked him to get into
their boat and soon they were off to the royal palace. They presented
him to their brother who wasn't particularly impressed but to keep the
princesses happy he said the boy could draw pictures to amuse the royal
ladies when ever they felt in the mood but at other times was to help
the busy court artists. A messenger was sent to his family lest they
worry about his absence and from then on the young Sun lived in the
palace. Life in the palace was very glamorous. He was given very fine
almost 'see-through' Egyptian cotton clothes to wear. They dressed
exactly like the scribes depicted on the inside walls in the insides of
the pyramids. He feasted daily on the best kind of ancient food
imaginable. He no longer had to collect firewood for his mother or help
his father in the fields. All he had to do from sun rise to sunset was
to draw pictures and keep the royal ladies amused. They were very
interested and amused when he told them of his life in the village. His
life had certainly changed for the better. It was fun at first but at
times it did get rather tedious. He was expected to draw all sorts of
stupid messages for the princesses on scraps of papyrus and they just
passed them to each other laughed a lot, tore it up and asked for more
messages to be drawn. That's when he thought of a kind of short cut
pictures the ancient kind of short hand. Being a rather bright young
fellow he knew that if he annoyed the princesses he would loose his
head so he went about it by pretending it a great big game. Very
cleverly he put it to them that they devise a kind of secret writing
and then told them that he would no longer draw complete pictures but
just kind of diagram s for sounds. It would also mean they could write
more. He filled a papyrus with pictures like the following
????????????????????????????????? The royal ladies found it all very
amusing and certainly proud to have a secret writing of their own which
no body but they, the princesses and their teacher Sun would know how
to read. They being clever princesses learned quickly. Young Sun found
it fun teaching them his inventions. They enjoyed writing on the scraps
of papyrus paper all by themselves which meant he did not have to spend
all his time drawing messages to be thrown away. He kept inventing
easier symbols for everything he could think of. He devised and taught
them little symbolic pictures for sounds too. Things like stars were
easy * looked like a star and it remained a word. A star* and a ring
'0' would become the word -starring-*0. Words like belief were
complicated but a 'bee' and a 'leaf' did the trick-a bee and leaf
together meant 'belief'. For animals they just drew diagrammatic
versions of the animals. For numbers they just put slashes. As the
numbers increased the number of slashes grew but it certainly was
easier than drawing s a 100 cows or people or a 100 people kissing if
you wanted to send a 100 kisses. It was fun and the young man spent so
much time teaching the ladies to read and write that he did not have to
help the royal scribes who had no mercy when it came to making the
young man draw while they rested. Thus dear readers the first literate
people came to be and they were the little group of Egyptian princesses
and their trusted maids. The new kind of phonetic picture writing,
which they called hieroglyphics, remained a secret until one of the
princesses fell in love with the handsome son of the general.
Princesses were not supposed to fall in love with anyone but a prince.
Some generals were princes but this one wasn't and so the situation
wasn't exactly a happy one. Seeing each other alone wasn't easy. They
could send letters but any messages sent would be read someone and the
secret discovered. The only way they could communicate in secret was to
teach him the new secret writing. Sun being very fond of the pretty
Princess Yasmine agreed to teach the general's son the new writing and
soon messages were sent to and fro; a secret to all but the three. Such
happy situations don't last forever. The message fell into the wrong
hands. The squibles were illegible and thinking it some stupid scrap of
nonsense just threw it away but then more such papyrus bits with
squibles were intercepted. There certainly was some meaning to all
these stupid meaningless looking pictures! The matter certainly had to
be investigated. The palace spies being very efficient it didn't take
long to uncover the whole truth. The lovers were brought before the
pharaoh who the whole court felt was sure to would order their heads
cut off. The pharaoh asked the story of the lovers be retold -he
couldn't understand why no one had read the romantic missiles. The
secret of the hieroglyphics simply had to be told. A very frightened
Sun was brought in chains and presented to the pharaoh to be punished
as he saw meet. The proud ruler was not above curiosity and he asked
the script be explained. The young man was very frightened but he was
also brave. Death faced him and that made him reckless. He demanded
that the princess and her lover be set free before he spoke. Kill the
three of them and the secret of the writing would die with them. (The
king wasn't told that all the princesses were literate.) The wise king
sensed the new writing would be a useful tool and agreed since after
all it didn't matter if one more was added to the many in his court. He
could make the general's son a prince and perhaps gain a loyal subject
by doing so. He was both wise and shrewd. The whole idea of writing
with symbols seemed rather complicated to the pharaoh at first but he
sensed that it was a good useful invention. The scribes could write
more and express ideas too. His name would be remembered as the creator
of hieroglyphics. The real inventor would be forgotten but not his own
name as it would be written that he, the pharaoh, was the inventor.
Ancient pharaohs always behaved this way-they took the credit for all
the inventions of their subjects. Thus, dear reader, it came about that
picture writing came about and finally led to the discovery of the
alphabet as we know it today. The Egyptian picture writing was
certainly more colourful and interesting than our present day writing.
Just look on the pictures of the walls of the ancient pyramids if you
don't believe me.