Failed but Not Forgotten: A Psychoanalytic Contribution to Understanding Hieroglyphics

Abstract

This paper will explore the study of hieroglyphics through a unique manner. Rather than using the famed Rosetta Stone which linguistically compares Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic scipt and Ancient Greek, we suggest a new approach to unraveling the mystery of hieroglyphics. We are pushed to do so because the Rosetta Stone was created around 3500 years after the birth of hieroglyphics and thus hierolglyphics had to evolve greatly over this long period of time. Moreover, we must assume that this language was not a phonetic based language in its origins. I argue to truly understand hieroglyphics one must try to come to terms with what these Egyptian symbols truly meant in their origins. From this solid footing, linguistics and other scientists can then focus on the step-by-step evolution of each symbol as they move towards a phonetic future. I use a notion that I coin called “linguistic economy.” Here I mean that each symbol represents or says the most in a passage or story in the most efficient manner, i.e. the who, when, where, how or why. As an example, I utilize the symbol of an owl and explain that it alone can express the time of day that a story takes place—this being dusk. To strengthen my argument that the owl could mean dusk and all that comes with it, I use Freud’s famed theories about the Dream-Work process that he explores in his “The Interpretation of Dreams.” In finality, we see that hieroglyphic symbols can most easily fall in line with the rules governing the unravelling of dream elements.