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.
