Bibliography

Recommendations

Detailed citations in Sources section below.

My recommended grammar is Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, by James P. Allen (now in its 3rd edition), which is not only an in-depth, up-to-date treatment of the language, but also contains an essay in every chapter about various cultural elements likely to be of interest to the student. Allen writes for student Egyptologists but is accessible to an interested “hobbyist” like me.

For a good yet widely accessible English dictionary of Middle Egyptian, the gold standard remains A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond O. Faulkner. Not only does it provide citations, variant spellings, etc. but it is simply a beautiful book, owing to Faulkner’s amazing handwriting (yes, it is handwritten). The only flaw, if there is one, is that it is only sorted in Egyptian order and lacks an English index. If you want such an index, see Shennum’s (see below).

Sources

Allen, James P. (2014). Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs (3d ed). Cambridge University Press.

Blackman, A.M. (1988). The Story of King Kheops and the Magicians. J.V. Books.

Faulkner, Raymond O. (1966). A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Griffith Institute.

Gardiner, Alan H. (1957). Egyptian Grammar: Being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. Griffith Institute.

Hoch, James E. (1997). Middle Egyptian Grammar. Benben Publications.

Peust, Carsten (2007). “Zur Bedeutung und Etymologie von nzw ‘König’” Göttinger Miszellen, 213, pp. 59-62.

Shennum, David, and Faulkner, Raymond O. (1977). English-Egyptian Index of Faulkner’s Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Undena Publications.

Werning, D. (2024). “Genitive” Possessive Constructions in Égyptien de Tradition. https://doi.org/10.18452/28786

Works by E. A. Wallis Budge

To quote James P. Allen (2014, p. 464), his works “were not too reliable when they first appeared and are now woefully outdated.” But because they are out of copyright, they are very widely reprinted, especially now in the era of print-on-demand (crap).

In truly Egyptian fashion, let me speak well of the dead. I’ve never read anything against his personal goodness and amiability, not to mention his love of cats and his willingness to help sincere students of Egyptology (to the extent that he could). And furthermore, his Easy Lessons and Dictionary, cited below, were my first books on the subject, back in my teens, when I began to learn. So hopefully, if the Egyptians were right, one day we shall meet him in the Field of Reeds, where he shall have learned better Egyptian.

If Budge’s books are all you have access to, they’re better than nothing. And his dictionary does have one handy use: If you need to look up a word by the English form instead of the Egyptian form, and you have Faulkner’s dictionary but not Shennum’s index for it, you look it up in Budge’s dictionary, see what he lists for it, then look up that Egyptian in Faulkner for the word he probably meant and see if it meets your needs. (Don’t forget to transliterate Budge’s … weird … transliteration symbols into Faulkner’s.)

Budge, E. A. W. (1910). Easy lessons in Egyptian hieroglyphics with sign list (3d ed). K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.
Republished as Egyptian Language.
Online: https://archive.org/details/egyptian-language/

Budge, E. A. W. (1920). An Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary: with an index of English words, king list, and geographical list with indexes, list of hieroglyphic characters, Coptic and Semitic alphabets, etc. in two volumes. John Murray & Co.
Online:
v. 1 https://archive.org/details/BudgeEAWEgyptianHieroglyphicDictionaryVol11920/mode/2up,
v. 2 https://archive.org/details/BudgeEAWEgyptianHieroglyphicDictionaryVol21920

Text References

The following provides a list of text references on the examples I provide throughout the lessons.

Ani: Papyrus of Ani, British Museum EA10470. Numbers given are of the spell name, followed by the frame; e.g. Spell 30b on frame 3 would be “Ani, 30b, 3”.

“BD”: Naville, Edouard (1886). Das aegyptische Todtenbuch der XVIII. bis XX. Dynastie (The Egyptian Book of the Dead from the 18th to 20th Dynasty). Asher & Co.

“CT”: Adriaan de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications series. Available online.

“Ebers”: Georg Ebers, Papyros Ebers: Das Hermetische Buch über die Arzneimittel der alten Ägypter in hieratischer Schrift (Papyrus Ebers: The Hermetic Book of Ancient Egyptian Medicines in Hieratic Script). Numbers are column, then line of text within column.

“Hyksos”: Gardiner, Alan (1916). The Defeat of the Hyksos by Kamōse. JEA 3, 95–110.
A publication of the Carnarvon Tablet.

“Koptos”: W. M. Flinders Petrie, Koptos. London, 1896.
Online: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4391

“M. Karnak”: Auguste Mariette, Karnak, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1875. Available online. Numbers will refer to plates.

“MuK”: Erman, Adolf (1901). Zauberspruch für Mutter und Kind aus dem Papyrus 3027 des Berliner Museums. APAW.
(“Magic spell for mother and child from Papyrus 3027 of the Berlin Museum.”)
Online: https://archive.org/details/b24866003

“Neferti”: Wolgang Helck, Die Prophezeiung des Nfr.tj. Wiesbaden: Kleine Ägyptische Texte, 1970.

“Peasant”: The tale of the Eloquent Peasant, in several papyri: R (Ramesseum, Bt (Butler), B1 (Berlin 3023), B2 (Berlin 3025). Available in several sources, including [fill this in]

“Ptahhotep”: Les maximes de Ptahhotep [fill this in]

“Rhind”: Peet, T. E. (1923).The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, British Museum 10057 and 10058. University of Liverpool Press.
Online: https://archive.org/details/Peet_1923

“Sethe”: Kurt Sethe, Ägyptische Lesestücke zum Gebrauch im akademischen Unterricht: Texte des Mittleren Reiches (Egyptian readings for use in academic teaching: Texts of the Middle Kingdom). Leipzig, 1928.

“Sin”: The Story of Sinuhe, in the R (Ramesseum) or B (Berlin) papyri. Available in several sources, including:

“Siut”: Francis Llewellyn Griffith, The Inscriptions of Siût and Dêr Rîfeh. London: Trübner & Co., 1889.

“Smith”: James H. Breasted, The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, 2 vols. Chicago: Oriental Institute Publications series, 1930. Available onilne.

“TTS”: Norman de Garis Davies and Alan H. Gardiner, eds., The Theban Tombs Series. London: Egypt Exploration Society. Several volumes, some available online:

  1. The Tomb of Amenemhēt (No. 82). 1915. Online: link or https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101067642122
  2. The Tomb of Antefoḳer, vizier of Sesostris I, and of His Wife, Senet (No. 60). 1920. Online: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015050670069
  3. The Tombs of Two Officials of Tuthmosis the Fourth (Nos. 75 and 90). 1923. Online: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015009049258
  4. The Tomb of Ḥuy, viceroy of Nubia in the reign of Tutꜥankhamūn (No. 40). 1926. Online: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015024232343
  5. The Tombs of Menkheperrasonb, Amenmosĕ, and another (Nos. 86, 112, 42, 226). 1933. I have not found an online edition available for use.

“Urk”: Books from the Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums (Documents from Egyptian Antiquity) series:

  • Urk. IV: Kurt Sethe and Wolfgang Helck, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, 22 vols. Leipzig and Berlin, 1906–1984.

“Westcar”: Adolf Erman, Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar (The tales of Papyrus Westcar). Berlin: W. Spemann, 1890.

Abbreviations used in this Bibliography

APAW: Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences).

JEA: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology (annual publication of the Egypt Exploration Society).