ANCR-401 Lessons

The atmosphere in the Room of Runes is mysterious as always, helped especially this year by the strange smell of incense in the air. It seems unlikely that Professor Wessex managed to recreate the smell of incense without burning anything in a room full of dangerously fragile books... But then again, magic is a wonderful thing. Colourful papyri decorate the walls in between the shelves amidst the normal cornucopia of artefacts and texts this room usually holds. She sits, unmoving, in the middle of it all, surprisingly early for once.

Introduction
I see many of you have returned, good. If the intricacies and histories of the two more challenging futharks did not scare you off, you will enjoy what is to come. Last year, our topics were not as much about magic as they were about the history, foundation, and linguistic functions of the two “child” futharks rather than magic, for obvious reasons.

This year will be similar in some ways, but for different reasons. Our script of choice this year -- ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics -- is very uncontestedly magical, unlike either the Younger Futhark or the Anglo-Saxon Futhork. However, as you will learn, Egyptian hieroglyphs are a much broader topic and with a much larger corpus of symbols than either of the two scripts from last year.

Because of this, we require two years to adequately cover the basics of Egyptian hieroglyphics. This year -- the first year -- we will be focusing on familiarizing ourselves with the phonetic side of hieroglyphs, the culture of the people that used them, as well as their history. All in all, things crucial to a deeper understanding of any script and a strong foundation. Next year, we will begin the more challenging topic of introducing the magical component to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The Power of Words
Before we begin, though, it is important to review some key terms. Those of you who have studied Ancient Runes for the past two years will know that in this course, our aim is to learn to read, translate, and understand the writing systems of ancient cultures. Writing systems or scripts are made up of signs or symbols that convey meaning, and in particular, they are a means of recording information in a form that can transcend space and time. You will often find me using the two terms “script” and “writing system” when referring to the material we study in this course.

However, while I will use those two terms interchangeably, be sure that you do not confuse these two terms with the word “language.” A language is in many ways similar to a writing system.1 It is a means of communication that relies on shared knowledge of a “code” between the users. At its most basic, it requires two people to agree and know that the word “apple” means a specific type of fruit, more or less round, which grows on trees and can be eaten safely. This is the same with scripts. The difference is the method by which that shared knowledge is transmitted.

Originally, all communication was oral, and thus dependent on one person being close enough to hear another person say something. This “closeness” applied to both time and space, for if you stood in the same spot an hour later, you would not be able to hear what had been said earlier.

This problem of space and time was only overcome with the invention of writing. That is, the method of recording information in a format that was portable across time and space. You could say that the invention of the first script was the very first time machine. In this course, we primarily concern ourselves with the writing systems of ancient cultures. However, this does not mean that we can completely ignore language, for the two are invariably intertwined. Both are dependent on our knowledge of their code, and in this course, we will study the code that is used to turn the sounds of the spoken language of ancient Egypt into visual signs that have endured long enough for us to still see them today, even though their scribes and creators have been dead for several millennia, and their language hasn’t been spoken by anyone for a similarly long time.

We usually learn to speak a language before we begin to learn to write it. However, scripts are slightly different, because many scripts serve more than one language. You may not be able to speak German, for example, but as it uses the same alphabet as English (in this case the Latin alphabet), you could, in theory, still more or less pronounce German words and perhaps even understand some of them if they are related to their English counterparts. Along the same vein, we are able to recognize similarities between our own language and the Latin commonly used for spell-casting. So although we won’t be learning the language of ancient (or more precisely Middle) Egyptian in this course, learning to read the symbols will still enable you to understand the ancient inscriptions to a surprising degree. At the very least, you should be able to recognise them as symbols with a specific meaning rather than just pretty decorations.

This, That, and the Other Thing
Our final note on terminology today deals with the fact that this class is called “Ancient Runes” but we are about to embark upon two years of studying hieroglyphics. these two terms -- along with “symbol”, “sign,” “glyph”, and more are interchangeable. They essentially indicate characters or letters that have meaning, whether it be phonetic, ideographic, or otherwise.

Many symbols around the world are referred to as “glyphs” or some particular kind of glyph, and although symbols in Germanic areas eschew this title, they are both the same thing. The difference lies in the languages. “Rune” is from Old Norse meaning “secret” or “mystery” and “glyph” is from ancient Greek, meaning “sacred image”.  They are, in fact, the same concept. Therefore, particularly as years go on and we start to study symbols with less concrete associations, you will hear me use “rune” in one breath and “glyph” in the next, all the while referring to the same group of symbols.

The long and short of what you need to take away from this is that whether we study runes, miroglyphs, petroglyphs or other mysterious markings, they all fall under the umbrella of ancient magical symbols. For once, things are simple.

Course Syllabus
With that out of the way, let us look at what we are studying this year. I have included the syllabus for this year below. Take a look and then I will explain to you what this means in a little more detail.

By the end of this year, you should be able to recognise the basic symbols used in Egyptian inscriptions and have the basic knowledge of how to decipher the symbols with the help of a dictionary or word list.  Though this is by no means a complete course, it should give you a better understanding of the script as well as the culture of ancient Egypt. Next year, we will continue our studies in ancient Egypt, but our focus will, more or less, be on purely magical topics.

Because of the sheer number of glyphs and the meanings assigned, our discussion of ancient Egypt needs to be broken down into two years: one for the mechanics of reading and phonetics and another for use in script-based magic. Even with two years, we will only scratch the surface. We will begin next week with a general look at ancient Egypt and discuss how the system of the hieroglyphs began to develop. In the following weeks, you will begin to learn the building blocks of the ancient Egyptian script, starting with those representing familiar sounds. We will progress to symbols that represent sounds you may not have heard before, or that do not have a unique symbol in our own Latin script, before looking at a group of sounds that are underrepresented in Egyptian, yet would make our own language nearly unreadable if they were missing. Finally, we will look at a category of symbols that helps with the apparent deficit of the hieroglyphs. Once we have a basic repertoire of Egyptian symbols, we will look at the question of ideograms in a little more detail, before concluding the year with a look at the relationship between hieroglyphs and Egyptian magic. Your last lesson will consist of a short review of the year, followed by a guest speaker and your final exams.

Since this course aims to teach you how to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, most of the assignments this year will be transcription assignments. Unfortunately, as there is currently no easy and accessible option of typing the hieroglyphs in a browser, I will not require you to transcribe anything into hieroglyphs. However, should you wish to practice writing them, there will be one or two extra credit assignments where you can submit photos of your hieroglyphic writings.

Closing
This brings us to the end of our first lesson. Your assignment this week consists of a short quiz on the key terms and the content of this year’s material. Next week will include a brief look at the culture of ancient Egypt to help us better understand the civilization we are studying. Without giving too much away, I will say that those of you who have already taken Ancient Studies will find your background very useful. Until then.

Footnotes:

1. Technically speaking, outside of this class, the distinction between “language” and “script” is unnecessary. However, because of the need to differentiate between spoken and written forms of communication for the sake of clarity, I have elected to refer only to oral communication as language in Ancient Runes. Truthfully, the term “language” can cover both concepts, but this would very quickly become confusing while trying to learn various concepts, culture, and alphabets.

Original lesson written by Professor Mathilda Stevens
Additional portions written by Professor Venita Wessex
Image credits here and here