An Egyptian Reading book for Beginners

Excerpt from An Egyptian Reading Book for Beginners: Being a Series of Historical, Funereal, Moral, Religious and Mythological Texts Printed in Hieroglyphic Characters




This series of texts was given in my Egyptian Reading Book, which appeared in 1888, and although they were printed without transliterations, and without notes or explanations, they seemed to fill a want. Several friends who used the book, however, pointed out that its usefulness would have been greater if the lines of Egyptian had been broken up into words, and if a complete transliteration and vocabulary had been added. With the view of making the work as useful as possible I recopied the texts, dividing them into words, and Iwrote transliterations of them and made a complete vocabulary the result is the book now before the reader. In dividing the words I have been guided solely by the wish to make them easily distinguishable, and in transliterating them I have followed the old system sanctioned by Birch, Lepsius and others, for in spite of its defects it is, in mv opinion, as good as any which has been suggested. Where possible, I have added a number of references to each word in the Vocabulary, so that the student may compare their use in several passages, for this, after all, is frequently the only way in which the true meaning of a word can be ascertained. The exact meanings of many of the words which occur in works like the Precepts of Ptah-hetep can only be guessed at, and the explanations of many of them given in the vocabulary must.