How Hieroglyphics Helped Pharaohs Rule Egypt #5

In this series, we've been learning how to rule like a pharaoh. Today, we must win the respect of the scribes by learning their written language. And we'll see how two rulers, one a woman and one a foreigner, used hieroglyphics to turn weakness into power. Hieroglyphics were sacred picture writing. There were over 700 different symbols, which is a lot more than our alphabet. And each of these squiggly little pictures could mean a sound, object, or even an entire idea. It's kind of like writing an essay using only emojis, but then you carve it into your desk forever. So, why were hieroglyphics important and where could they be found? Let's go back to the beginning. Wall's pretty low down. Don't want to bump my head. Here we are in the tomb of the pharaoh. It's a little bit eerie. I really hope the entrance doesn't close over. This casket behind me is where the mummy of the pharaoh was found. Little little bit creepy. At first, hieroglyphics were used in ancient Egypt as sacred carvings, a way to communicate with the gods and ensure eternal life after death. That's exactly why you'll see them on tomb walls, temple pillars, and sarcophagi. >> As I say, this is the largest tomb in the Val of the King. >> 72 m in the length. When you walk into the tomb, you will see Horus is the sa. Then you see people inside the carto. Can you see people stand up inside the cartoons? >> Yeah. >> But over time, Pharaohs began to realize the power of these magical carvings for keeping order and control across Egypt. Hieroglyphics recorded shared history, stories, and everyday life. People's lives and roles were shown from farmers and craftsmen to merchants, soldiers, and priests, giving everyone a sense of identity, purpose, and belonging within their society. The arts is very clever how he manage or to depict it in the wall. She's gone to bond to bond Somalia. If you see here, you can see when she started expedition, the fisher red sea, the tattoo. Can you see the chief of Bah Somalia? He welcomed them. Can you see name? It's called Bah. He welcomed the expedition. He welcomed Hatch raising his hand. Pharaohs, however, used hieroglyphics to their advantage, too. They use them to show off victories, display divine power or even reinvent themselves as gods. That's why you'll also see hieroglyphics in temples, monuments, and public spaces. This is where Alexander the Great. Alexander I kept telling you that he wanted to act nice for the Egyptian to able to take their secrets and he founded the key of the Egyptian heart and mind at their guts. So he call himself the son of Amu and build a temple in Siwa and build a chapel here. He's acted and he's receiving the ank from Horus and he was the first non Egyptian king. He put his name inside a cart. He called himself Alexander the first, great of the greatest. >> As the language evolved, the detailed hieroglyphs simplified into faster scripts like heratic and demotic, used for everyday tasks, keeping records of trades, taxes, letters, and stories on papyrus scrolls. An early form of paper instead of stone. Did you know a cart is an oval frame carved around a pharaoh's name in hieroglyphics? The one above that is coronation name is a king name that his name to tomorrow the third >> a cart is supposed to symbolize protection and eternity. It showed that the name inside belonged to royalty literally sealing their place in history. >> This word we call it a kartous. A kartush it's mean a bullet in French. Egyptian believe that the sky she is a lady in the earth he's a man and that sky she loves a man but he cannot marry her because she's very tall so she turn around him with her two hands like this and two legs like this and it's oval on our head like this that's why the Egyptian believe the sky it's oval and the earth is straight >> but whose job was it to record all of these hieroglyphics that's where the scribes come in the scribes were the only people trained to read and write in hierogly spending years mastering thousands of symbols. Scribes worked for the Pharaoh, the temples, and even the army, recording taxes, laws, harvests, and victories. Without them, Egypt's history would have been lost forever. If the meaning of the language was lost 1,500 years ago, how on earth did we ever figure out what they meant? And the way we figured that out was by using a big giant rock. Bit random, but here is the story. In 1799, some French soldiers were digging in Egypt and discovered the Rosetta Stone, a slab with the same message written in three languages, Greek, deotic, and hieroglyphics. Now, historians did not understand hieroglyphics. They also didn't understand demotic. But we did understand ancient Greek. This was the key to decoding hieroglyphics. Fast forward 20 brainmelting years later and boom, Jean Franar Champolleon cracks the code in 1822. All right, pharaohs, now that you've learned about hieroglyphics, the next step to win the respect of the scribes is to make some papyrus paper. And you can learn how to make your very own papyrus paper as well as some hieroglyphics by following along the activity video on our website. Link is in the description. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel for more of these videos. And as always, thanks for watching. See you next time.