Hieroglyphs for Travelers

Rating:
Summary: A lovely piece of work
Review: "Hieroglyphs for Travelers" by Mudloff and Fellows is a lovely pice of work. It is truly pocket sized, as advertised. I do have a couple of minor criticisms. Firstly, the photographs should be in color. It would have a lot more "punch". I know that would would double the price, but it would be worth it! Secondly, I don't don't think it was necessary to turn it into a text book, with tests. I think that would be very intimidating to the average tourist. However, I do look forward to a further, expanded volume (with tests and color photographs). It doesn't have to be pocket sized.

Rating:
Summary: A lovely piece of work
Review: "Hieroglyphs for Travelers" by Mudloff and Fellows is a lovely pice of work. It is truly pocket sized, as advertised. I do have a couple of minor criticisms. Firstly, the photographs should be in color. It would have a lot more "punch". I know that would would double the price, but it would be worth it! Secondly, I don't don't think it was necessary to turn it into a text book, with tests. I think that would be very intimidating to the average tourist. However, I do look forward to a further, expanded volume (with tests and color photographs). It doesn't have to be pocket sized.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Based on the recommendation on this website, I took this book to Egypt this past summer 2001, and was glad I did. By learning to recognize just a few hieroglyphs and pharaoh names (Ramesses II kept popping up!) the different sites seemed to come alive. I was not just touring famous sites and being lectured too, I was attempting to understand the sites myself. It was really a great feeling. Our tour guide (a PhD student) asked to see the book that he saw me peering into almost every day. And, yes, the copy was sturdy and lasted from Abu Simbel to the interior of the Great Pyramid. Although my cargo pants were not large enough to acommodate it - the book was about 1/2 inch too wide. (Maybe that's the difference between male and female pants?) I thought seriously about trimming the pages so it would fit, but never got around to it.

I had not studied any hieroglyphs before, but this book was great even for me. Pretty easy to understand the basics. I wasn't expecting to decipher the Rosetta stone; I just wanted a chance to see if I could recognize something!

If you really want to be engaged in your tour, rather than be a passive tourist, take this with you.

I only gave it 4 out of 5, however, because I did find a couple of editorial mistakes, and they were not clear about how even the simplest pharoah names could vary, but that's not a big deal.

Rating:
Summary: Great intro to hieroglyphs and concise tour book in one
Review: I purchased this handy little guide for a 2 week tour to Egypt last fall. The hieroglyph part contains the basics of how to read many of the inscriptions well enough to determine who the stela, statue, tomb, or temple was built by and dedicated to. This was part that I got the book for. It worked great for this purpose.

The bonus was the concise description of most of the sites we visited as well as the king list in the back. The site descriptions are short enough to read over breakfast, but long enough to prepare me for what to look out for and what questions to ask once we got to the site.

I ended up taking over 2000 digital photos and have been teaching myself how to read the hieroglyphs more thoroughly. I've purchased the standards for the field - Gardiner's Grammar and Faulkner's Concise Dictionary. This little book sits on my shelf right there with them. In fact, it's usually the first one I reach for when I want a quick "who built this and why" on the monumental inscriptions. Gardiner and Falkner will give me the details, but Mudloff will give me the framework that the other guys fill in.

Rating:
Summary: Short but sweet
Review: I was surprised that such a small book - it is a pocket guide that is actually pocket-sized! - could hold such an ample amount of information. The text is concise without coming to the point of being enigmatic, and is replete with a quantity of valuable data on inscriptions, translations, etc. In the span of four or five pages are presented the names and cartouches of many of the royalty. Presented as well are translations for other monument inscriptions. As someone who has studied hieroglyphic, I can whole-heartedly recommend this book as an invaluable aid to fill in the gaps. It is 'sine qua non' - absolutely indispensable, for both journeying and armchair travellers to Egypt.

Rating:
Summary: Re: Great Book for Egypt Travelers
Review: Through this wonderful compact book and its exercises, readers are able to identify the names of pharaohs and their queens. They will actually translate curses and other inscriptions, and will be transported to Egypt with short visits of the pyramids, the sphinx, the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, the Temple of Hatsheptsut at Deir el-Bahri, the Colossi of Memnon, the Luxor and Karnak temples among many other monuments. In only 120 pages, the authors briefly explain the ancient Egyptian religion and the most important gods and goddesses. They also deal with hieroglyphs and their spelling and translation, reading numbers, and even a little hieroglyphic grammar. There is an answer page that provides a key to the various exercises. A short bibliography and chronology are provided at the end. With several black and white illustrations, this book is a must for any trip to this fascinating land, whether accompanied by a guide or alone.