Hieroglyphic Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Middle Egyptian Language

Like the other booklets in Dr Petty's series, this one is selective rather than comprehensive. One small touch that I really like is listing the phonograms in dictionary order along the top of each page, so useful! This work also nicely complements another booklet in the series, Egyptian Glyphary Recommended for early students of Middle Egyptian

Ordered by mistake but a great addition to learning. Fully comprehensive and you need this if your serious about learning.

This book is an excellent pocket dictionary and comes in handy when in a museum or if you are visiting sites in Egypt, its a great memory aid also, especially when your middle egyptian is a bit rusty like mine. What I liked was the fact that the book is compact, handy and portable, it supports main text's and books on the subject, some of which can be quite weighty, I'm thinking of the seminal text 'Egyptian Grammar' by Alan Gardner. I give it 4 stars because I think as a quick reference book the layout could be improved with quick research tabs, having said that, the layout is good and the book is a useful reference tool.

The entries in this book are sorted according to the "alphabet" used by Egyptologists, i.e. by sound, not by glyph. The author has very conveniently printed this "alphabet" across every pair of open pages. Very useful for people like me, who can never quite remember it. However, this system only works if you can actually read the Egyptian words you're encountering, and all you require is a translation. If you don't know what a given hieroglyph "sounds like", you need to either use this book in conjunction with "Hieroglyphic Sign List" by the same author, or purchase the "Egyptian Glyphary" (again by the same author). The latter is a combination of "glyph identifier" and dictionary. I have all three and find myself working with all of them. Very easy to use, all basic words appear to be present, but, as I said, it's not intended for those who have no understanding at all of hieroglyphic.

I got this to help with my studies as I got fed up with hopping backwards and forwards in my main Middle Egyptian text book to check words. This is a handy addition. I particularly like that the transcription alphabetic sequence is shown accross the top of each page (first picture) making it easy for you to keep track of where you are and the order in which the entries are showns. The contents page with its list of signs frequently appearing at the start of words (secind picture) is also a helpful way to get to the words being searched for.

Good and helpful

As a reference to try and understand the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and sort the out, then this little book is invaluable. But - and there is always a 'but', you need the other companion volumes as well to get a different slant and definition. That's the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars on its own. However having said that if you add all the other volumes together - you will need a big pocket to hold them and a strong arm to carry them, certainly would be hard to lug them all around with you if you were on-site. If I was to take only one with me to Egypt, it would be 'The names of the Kings of Egypt' and take as many pictures as I could and study them with the other books back home later.

This is excellent, will be extremely helpful in translating objects in museums etc. At first glance it looks mind boggling, but I,m sure once one begins to use the book, it will work in helping decipher men's.