About Us

Learn Hieroglyphics was founded by a small team of Egyptology enthusiasts, scholars, and software engineers who shared a common frustration: the world’s oldest monumental writing system had no truly modern, interactive learning platform.

Traditional resources like Gardiner’s grammar, Allen’s Middle Egyptian, and scattered university lecture notes are invaluable to specialists, yet they can feel impenetrable to newcomers. We set out to bridge that gap, combining rigorous academic content with the kind of engaging, step-by-step experience that modern learners expect.

What started as a side project in 2024 has grown into a comprehensive curriculum covering the full Middle Egyptian sign list, grammar, and reading practice drawn from real historical inscriptions.

Hi, I’m Harry, a software engineer and lifelong history enthusiast. My fascination with ancient Egypt started during a childhood visit to the British Museum, standing in front of the Rosetta Stone and wondering what those symbols actually said.

Years later, I finally sat down to learn. I worked through Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar, Allen’s Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, and Collier & Manley’s How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs. The content was incredible, but the learning experience felt stuck in the 1950s. No interactivity, no progress tracking, no way to test yourself against real inscriptions.

So I built what I wished had existed: a structured, interactive course that teaches hieroglyphics the way modern language apps teach Spanish or Japanese: progressively, with real practice, and with the cultural context that makes each sign come alive.

Every lesson is grounded in the latest Egyptological scholarship, drawing on primary sources from the Middle Kingdom through the Ptolemaic period. I consult published sign lists, peer-reviewed translations, and museum collections to ensure accuracy.

We believe that academic rigor and modern interactive learning are not at odds. They amplify each other. Every lesson is written or reviewed by scholars with postgraduate training in Egyptology, then refined by UX designers and educators to ensure clarity and engagement.

Our team operates at the intersection of humanities and technology. We treat hieroglyphic signs not just as data, but as a living connection to one of humanity’s greatest civilisations. That respect for the source material informs every design decision, from the authentic sign renderings to the carefully curated reading passages.

Our curriculum draws on the foundational works of Egyptology. These are the primary references we consult when building lessons and verifying translations:

• •Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs (3rd ed., 1957), the standard reference grammar and sign list
• •James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs (3rd ed., 2014), a modern pedagogical grammar widely used in universities
• •Mark Collier & Bill Manley, How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs (revised ed., 2003), an accessible introduction with real inscription exercises
• •Raymond O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (1962), the standard hieroglyphic dictionary
• •The Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), digital corpus of Egyptian texts