Books on pictorial scripts/languages

September 16, 2006 7:38 PM

Can anyone recommend a book on early pictorial scripts/languages?

I'm looking for something fairly general (and not too academic) covering Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Aztec pictograms (especially) and those sort of things. Thanks.

posted by richardm to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

E.A. Wallis Budge is (was) pretty much the starting point for anyone trying to teach themselves heiroglyphics. His methods are strictly old-school, English Headmaster-style, and not looked upon favorably these days, but that's how I started; something about the old-codger resonated with me.

Note, however, that traditional hieroglyphics weren't used very often in Egyptian texts—it was ornamental and you'll most often see it on the sides of huge monuments or buildings but almost never on papyri, which uses a kind of cursive-hieroglyphics style called Hieratic. If you're more interested in late-Egyptian writings, you'll need to study Demotic instead. It's completely different from the standard pictograms you're likely familiar with, and I would not suggest trying to start with it.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:09 PM on September 16, 2006

There is a very nice series of short, well-illustrated volumes on individual, mainly ancient scripts published under the general title 'Reading the Past' initially by the University of California Press. Volume six is Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

I didn't find a complete list of languages covered in my brief look, but I'm fairly sure each you mention has a volume of its own, and there are a number of others, as well.
posted by jamjam at 10:12 PM on September 16, 2006

here's a good online resource for Mayan glyphs:
http://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/
posted by anansi at 11:12 PM on September 16, 2006

I think Writing Systems of the World covers all of those.
posted by lunchbox at 11:23 PM on September 16, 2006

http://www.amazon.com/Voices-Stone-Viking-reprint-editions/dp/0678031525/sr=1-3/qid=1158497752/ref=sr_1_3/102-1342724-1008949?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Extinct-Languages-Johannes-Friedrich/dp/0802224350/sr=1-3/qid=1158497797/ref=sr_1_3/102-1342724-1008949?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Scripts-Ongoing-Discovery-Decipherment/dp/046502484X/sr=1-3/qid=1158497843/ref=sr_1_3/102-1342724-1008949?ie=UTF8&s=books
http://www.amazon.com/Story-Decipherment-Egyptian-Hieroglyphs-Script/dp/050028105X/sr=1-1/qid=1158497894/ref=sr_1_1/102-1342724-1008949?ie=UTF8&s=books

I have got and read all four and I can recommend all of them.
posted by TheRaven at 5:59 AM on September 17, 2006

E.A. Wallis Budge is (was) pretty much the starting point for anyone trying to teach themselves heiroglyphics.

Very much was. No offense, I'm glad you enjoyed him, but he's completely unreliable and has long since been superseded. (Besides, the request was for a general book about ancient scripts; I see no sign that the poster wants to learn hieroglyphs.)

TheRaven definitely knows his stuff (except perhaps for converting URLs to links).
posted by languagehat at 6:10 AM on September 17, 2006

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that Omniglot covers most if not all writing systems. While it's more like wikipedia where it offers a core of knowledge - but does include links to websites that are more specialized in whatever language. It certainly does cover heirloglyphs.
posted by apfel at 6:26 AM on September 17, 2006