The
Mystery of the Hieroglyphs: The Story of the Rosetta Stone and the Race
to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs
by
Carol Donoughue.
A well-reviewed book that makes hieroglyphics and the meaning of the
Rosetta Stone understandable to younger children (grades 3-6). An
excellent book for junior Egyptologists.
Amazon
says: For more than 15 centuries, no one could read the strange-looking
Egyptian hieroglyphs. And then in 1799 a French soldier in Napoleon's
army in Egypt stumbled across the Rosetta Stone, an ancient inscription
recorded in Greek, hieroglyphs, and demotic script. Many of the
brightest scholars of the time--Egyptologists, historians, and
linguists--as well as detectives, professional code breakers, and plain
amateurs, all set out to decipher the forgotten words. Carol Donoughue
tells us the fascinating story of the hieroglyphs and the race to
decipher them, explaining how this curious writing system began with
simple drawings of everyday objects. She compares the hieroglyphic
system to modern alphabets in an entertaining narrative complemented
with numerous photographs and drawings, maps, historical timelines
stretching from ancient Egypt to Napoleon, a glossary, and numerous
sidebars. The book culminates in an edge-of-your-seat description of how
the brilliant French archaeologist Champollion finally succeeded in
deciphering the hieroglyphs. A final section displays an alphabet of
"hieroglyphs" and offers some fun activities for children
based on hieroglyphic writing.
