Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Complete Beginners: The Revolutionary New Approach to Reading the Monuments [Hardcover]

This book is a must for beginners - its red decal says it all - Brand New Method.
As a beginner starting out with the intention of better understanding all those monuments that one visits in Egypt, I sought various books that would get me to that point. Janice Kamrin's book - Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: a practical guide is also excellent but introduces large numbers of words before one even gets to trying out what one has learned other than through exercises of text. Working with real inscriptions comes much later, but only after one has really struggled.

Bill Manley's new book is different in that it instills confidence right from the first chapter - starting with a stela for translation which he shows is entirely possible by learning and referring to a few basics and following some rules. Chapters progress steadily introducing the reader to the offering formula, with relevant tidbits and history carefully placed to increase understanding and maintain interest. Almost without realising it as one moves through the chapters, one picks up 2 and 3 sound signs, titles of position, and being able to tackle more and more complex dedications and epithets. The illustrations are good with both photographs and line drawings to ease visualisation, and sections of carvings ringed off so as to tackle the transliterations and translations piecemeal. By the end one is dealing with quite complex carvings and feeling good about how to approach them.

I managed the whole book in a week, getting up early just to tackle a little more, and similarly each evening. Mesmerising and a real treat.
This book replaces and far supersedes the starter chapters in the 'best seller' of he and Mark Collier - How to Read Egyptian - although he suggests their text a follow up to this book. It is clear to me that this new volume requires a successor volume that will move the reader on to some of the more complex issues by using the new methodology and especially the layout which is so much better. I look forward to that book emerging soon as it will certainly become the new standard. Thanks and well done Bill.

A visit to Egyptian temples where at least some hieroglyphics have survived the vandalism of fanatics from other religions is likely to kindle an interest in this subject. In a book that is attractively presented as you would expect from Thames and Hudson, but not too expensive since it is illustrated in black-and-white, Bill Manley succeeds in explaining the principles of hieroglyphics from scratch.

I have no idea how an expert would rate it, but I found it easy to grasp that many picture symbols in fact represent sounds: an owl is "m" and a ripple of water "n". You need to digest each principle before moving on to the next step, since Manley quickly introduces complications: 2 sound and then 3 sound signs, moving on the the "difficult to grasp" concept of "sound complements" which I found hard to understand as I was trying to go too fast. Then, there are the ideograms, or elements of "picture writing" such as the representation of the god Anubis as a dog lying on a shrine. Other symbols with a special sign added denote whole words, such as "mouth".

It is fascinating to realise that, whilst spoken Egyptian obviously had vowels, these were rarely written in the hieroglyphics, which in sense form "word skeletons" of consonants - like text speak! Also, hieroglyphics can be read in either direction, according to the direction in which the symbols are facing. Although knowledge of how to read this ancient script was lost for centuries, its similarities to Egyptian Coptic eventually provided the key to translating it.

If you do not wish to work systematically through the book, a good deal of enjoyment can be gained from browsing with a focus on lists of words and annotated diagrams which interpret inscriptions on famous monuments. What makes this book both distinctive and successful as an absorbing introduction is that the chapters are designed round a number of stelae - carvings - selected from monuments erected between 3000 and 1100 BC. Avoiding the risk of becoming a dry grammar, Manley takes care to include an explanation of Egyptian culture along with the language instruction.

An experienced teacher, the author is clever in his approach, since skimming through the book whets your appetite to make the effort to get to grips with the detail and so obtain the satisfaction of getting more out of viewing monuments in the future.

This is an excellent book for beginners, well paced, it does not overwhelm you. Good picture quality, plenty of real examples. I definitely find it better suited for complete beginners than How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A step-by-step guide to teach yourself.