Egyptian Hieroglyphic Reading Book for Beginners (Egypt)

E. A Wallis Budge, the author, was the curator of the British Museum’s Egyptian collection in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He compiled this compendium of ancient but, not unknown texts. You, using the dictionary in the appendix, can translate the stories and decrees into modern English. I translated about half the book a few years back and then lost the book. It seems intimidating at first bet then becomes just like working the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. As you become familiar with the phrases and characters you use in translating the stories you find yourself able to sight read the Egyptian texts. It is a totally useless skill in today’s world, but fun and intriguing at the same time. There are some euphemisms you learn that if you said them to an Ancient Egyptian about his wife he probably would, and rightly so, chop you into little pieces and scatter them about. But I have just given up the plot of one of the stories. Good luck!

Well, I must to recognize that all person who want seriously to learn Egyptian Language, one must to avoid Budge's Books, but I couldn't resist my curiosity. Really, I was surprised because of its rich contents in this book, great histories in hieroglyphic with a high quality printing with an excellent paper (if you buy Dover's Edition). Of course, you must to avoid use Budge's transliteration system and may be his vocabulary, before you should consult other books as Faulkner's Dictionary, and Gardiner's Grammar, or Allen's books, but in fact Egyptian Readings of Budge, really is a good material for to practice reading (with companion of authoritative mentioned books).

This book is outdated by now and the transliterization system in it is horrible, but the egyptian texts on the inside are good.

It's an excellent beginner's guide to deciphering ancient Egyptian (Kemetic) texts and papyri. I highly recommend it. It gets 5 stars!!!

Helpful!

This book has only one good thing: it gives original texts in hieroglyphics from various periods of Egypt. But, many scholars have found that Budge's system is outdated and unreliable. So, if you can't decipher hieroglyphics, I wouldn't reccomend buying this book. Most of all, he doesn't even give translations for all the texts! He gives 8 out of the 20 scripts in english. Heck, the guy's been dead for 100 years, and we've made new discoveries in deciphering Ancient Egyptian. There are many other authors on hieroglyphics that are much more accurate in their translations. Don't be like me and waste your money on this horrible book.