Ancient Egyptian "billboard" could rewrite history of hieroglyphs

stork left: banuA, ----------- to create, build, generate
stork right: banuB, ----------- to be good, beautiful.
ibis: gm ------------ to find, or to discover

banuA gm banuB

One translation : To build and discover is beautiful.

a reply to: charlyv

That was beautiful, but is it true??..I'm kinda hoping it is.

originally posted by: stormcell
I think so. In ancient Egyptian, The first ibis translate as " be, become a spirit, beneficial, useful, profitable.".

No, it doesn't.

The second ibis facing right seems to be related to a King/temple (anything king/temple/tomb related have right facing ibis).

Again, no. Egyptian hieroglyphs read the same whether they were right to left or left to right.

The bulls head on a stick translates as "water/ to drink" It might have been a sign post to a stream, mud hole or desert oasis. Maybe traders made money by selling mineral water?

No, the word for 'drink/water is 'ba ba' in ancient Egyptian, and is made up of the signs: D58-D36-D58-D36 and the determinative sign N35A

Gardiner's sign list provides a rough translation (symbols match G25 and F10).
en.wikipedia.org...

Here's a searchable dictionary (PDF) of Egyptian words. It's only a thousand or so words and won't be enough for you to translate much of anything but it'll be a start. Don't bother with Budge's dictionaries... they're full of errors.

To learn hieroglyphs, look for the Glyph Study groups on Yahoo Groups.

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: charlyv

That was beautiful, but is it true??..I'm kinda hoping it is.

Nope.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: charlyv

That was beautiful, but is it true??..I'm kinda hoping it is.

Nope.

Boo!! You buzz killer with facts..

a reply to: Spider879

A road sign would probably have been more for the merchants and traders than farmers though crops were traded.
I find this fascinating.
I wonder what it was saying ? Shoneys five miles ahead on the left. LOL.
Or was that in the article? I didn't click on it yet.
I can visualise a busy street with trader caravans entering the market area this billboard in the background.
I can almost imagine the sound and smells. Mingled voices shouting ,and spices, sweat and animals.
Some things just strike a anthropological cord with me instantly making me conscious of our connection to these people.
Often ancient people are " them " and then something like this brings it home that they are " us ".

a reply to: Sillyolme

No it"s not in the article, not even sure if one can get an accurate translation, as this was very early in Egyptian history, imagine trying to read very very very old English if you are not an expert.

originally posted by: Spider879

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: charlyv

That was beautiful, but is it true??..I'm kinda hoping it is.

Nope.

Boo!! You buzz killer with facts..

Well, that if they were not taken individually, which they are more like a car-touche, where multiple glyphs can take on a totally different meaning, however using the Egyptian Phonetic dictionary, like in WP, this is what they mean as individual Hyro-Script, sounded out with their decoded meanings.

originally posted by: teslahowitzer
I am absolutely convinced there is much more buried in the sand in the middle east. The cradle outward will reveal secrets we will marvel over. Remember, upon modern era rediscovery of the trio and the weird hybrid, it was up to it's neck in sand. What else is buried in the sands of time.???

I say this all the time!!! Between our oceans, sands and arctic, who knows what is beneath all those!

I mean look at pictures of the Sphinx, some of the first pics show it covered to it's neck in sand and NOW look at it.

Also Gobekli Tepei, look how that was found! So much is left to be discovered all over our planet!

originally posted by: charlyv

originally posted by: Spider879

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: Spider879
a reply to: charlyv

That was beautiful, but is it true??..I'm kinda hoping it is.

Nope.

Boo!! You buzz killer with facts..

Well, that if they were not taken individually, which they are more like a car-touche, where multiple glyphs can take on a totally different meaning, however using the Egyptian Phonetic dictionary, like in WP, this is what they mean as individual Hyro-Script, sounded out with their decoded meanings.

Sadly, that's not the way to read ancient Egyptian, and the individual sign "meanings" that you are interpreting is just our descriptive name for the shape. In cartouches, multiple glyphs do not take on different meanings any more than the letters of our alphabet take on different meanings if you write them right to left or left to right.

The mirrored ibises are a type of design that the Egyptians liked to use - but this is not actually writing, as others have said.

I see a lot of people here in America walking around with tattoos of Chinese Kanji on their legs and arms. People who, I am quite certain, cannot read Chinese.


The glyphs might have been intended for the ruling class. Who do you think traveled the most? Common people? I doubt it. They'd be too busy tending their farms.

Rich people and traders would travel. Rich people would know how to read because they're part of the elite. Traders would know how to read because they need to be able to rub shoulders with the elite. And because reading and writing opens doors to trade.

You can't track a large inventory if you don't have the ability to write any of it down. If you're doing anything past the point of running cart in the town square, you have too much inventory to just remember it.