Best Courses to Learn Hieroglyphics (2026): Online, Books, University & Free

Key Takeaways

• •There is no single "best" course; the right one depends on whether you want to read names on a museum visit, work through real inscriptions, or study Middle Egyptian grammar properly
• •For most beginners the fastest route is an interactive, self-paced online course followed by one good book (Collier & Manley)
• •James P. Allen's Middle Egyptian is the serious grammar; treat it as the second step, not the first
• •Tutored university courses (Oxford, Manchester, Edinburgh) are the choice if you want accreditation and marked work; budget several hundred pounds per module
• •Free options exist (GlyphStudy, free first lessons, open text corpora) but they trade structure for price
• •Whatever you pick, the thing that predicts success is the same: you read and write signs every week, rather than watch someone else do it

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How I Judged These

I've been through most of what's on this list, either as a learner or while building my own course. I wasn't looking for the most comprehensive option; I was looking for the one most likely to get you from zero to reading something real. So each course below is rated on four things:

1. •Does it make you read? Reading hieroglyphs is a skill, not a body of facts. Courses that only show you signs teach recognition, not reading.
2. •Does it start with the right signs? The 25 uniliteral signs (one sign, one sound) unlock names and most of what you'll meet on a monument. Courses that begin with the Gardiner sign list's 700+ signs lose people in a week.
3. •Does it use real inscriptions early? Made-up sentences are demoralising because they never look like the wall in front of you.
4. •What does it cost, in money and in time? Some of these are £12; some are a year of evenings.

Here's the list, roughly in the order I'd recommend for a beginner working towards reading real texts.

1. Learn Hieroglyphics (this site): best interactive course for beginners

Format: Self-paced online course, 8 lessons, browser-based, with 3D practice games Cost: First lesson free; $14.99 / £11.99 one-off for lifetime access Best for: Complete beginners who want structure, feedback and a fast route to reading names and short inscriptions

I'll declare the obvious interest: I built this. So judge it on the structure. Lesson one teaches the 25 uniliteral signs in about 25 minutes and is free to try; you'll read your first cartouche before the end of it. The remaining seven lessons move through biliteral and triliteral signs, determinatives, the offering formula, royal titulary and, finally, spells from the Book of the Dead, each with practice inside the lesson and 3D games (forging cartouches, decoding a tomb wall) that force you to produce signs rather than recognise them.

Where it wins: it's the fastest path I know from nothing to reading names, titles and formulaic monumental text, and it corrects you as you go. Teachers get a printable classroom worksheet and there's a free name translator to hook the curious.

Where it doesn't: it is not a full grammar course. If your goal is to translate the Tale of Sinuhe unaided, you will outgrow it and need Allen or a tutored course (see below). That's by design: most people never needed the grammar, they needed to be able to read the wall.

2. Collier & Manley, How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs: best book for self-study

Format: Book (British Museum Press, 1998; still in print) Cost: Around £15–20 Best for: Self-learners who want a proper foundation from real monuments without an academic grammar

If you only buy one book, this is the one. Mark Collier and Bill Manley wrote it for British Museum evening classes, and it shows: every chapter works from real objects in the museum's collection (stelae, coffins, statues) and teaches only the grammar you need to read that object. By the end you can read a standard Middle Kingdom funerary stela, which is a genuinely useful skill in any museum in the world.

Where it wins: real inscriptions from page one; the right amount of grammar; exercises with answers.

Where it doesn't: it is a book, so nothing corrects your mistakes in real time, and the pace can feel steep around chapter four when the verb forms arrive. Most people do best pairing it with something interactive for the sign-learning stage.

3. Bill Manley, Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Complete Beginners: gentlest book

Format: Book (Thames & Hudson, 2012) Cost: Around £12–15 Best for: People who found Collier & Manley too brisk, or who want to read monuments rather than study language

Manley's solo follow-up is slower and more visual than the 1998 book, again built entirely around real museum objects. It spends longer on the signs themselves and on how monumental inscriptions are laid out, which makes it the friendlier starting point for anyone who's nervous about grammar. It stops earlier than Collier & Manley, so treat it as a stepping stone rather than a destination.

4. James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian: the university textbook

Format: Textbook (Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed. 2014) Cost: Around £35–45 Best for: Anyone who wants to read Middle Egyptian literature properly, or is heading for formal study

Allen's Middle Egyptian is what universities teach from, and it's the book I check my own lessons against. It is comprehensive, rigorous and beautifully organised: 26 chapters, each with essays on Egyptian culture, followed by exercises drawn from real texts.

Where it wins: everything is here. If you finish it, you can read Middle Egyptian.

Where it doesn't: it's designed for a classroom with a tutor and a cohort. Working alone, most people stall between chapters 12 and 18, where the verbal system arrives in force. My advice: do an interactive course or Collier & Manley first, then Allen, ideally with a study group (see GlyphStudy below).

5. Oxford University Department for Continuing Education: best tutored online course

Format: Online, tutored short courses (typically 10 weeks), with an optional credit-bearing route Cost: Several hundred pounds per course; check the current fee Best for: Learners who want a real tutor, marked work and a timetable

Oxford's Department for Continuing Education runs online short courses in Egyptian hieroglyphs from an introductory level upwards. You work through weekly units with a tutor and a small group, submit translations, and get them marked. That feedback loop is exactly what books can't give you, and it's why people who've bounced off self-study twice often succeed here. Courses run on fixed dates and fill up, so look at the schedule a term ahead.

6. University of Manchester: Certificate in Egyptology (online)

Format: Part-time online certificate, typically two to three years, with hieroglyphs modules alongside history and archaeology Cost: University tuition, paid per year; check the current fee Best for: Committed learners who want a recognised qualification and the full picture of Egyptology, not just the language

Manchester's KNH Centre has run distance-learning Egyptology for decades and is well regarded among serious amateurs. The language modules are taught within a wider programme, so this is the choice if you want context (religion, chronology, archaeology) as well as reading skill. It's also the longest and most expensive commitment on this list, so it's not where I'd start.

Edinburgh's Egyptology courses sit in the same bracket: part-time, online, taught by academics, and run to a fixed calendar.

7. Bloomsbury Summer School: best in-person intensive

Format: Week-long, in-person courses in London (usually July), including hieroglyph classes at several levels Cost: Course fee plus a week in London Best for: People who learn best in a room with others and want a concentrated push

Bloomsbury Summer School is the UK's long-running Egyptology summer school, with hieroglyph courses taught by working Egyptologists. A week of daily classes will move you further than three months of occasional evenings, and you meet the people who become your study group afterwards. Check the current programme; the language courses vary year to year.

8. GlyphStudy: best free option (with a catch)

Format: Free, volunteer-led online study groups that work through a standard textbook (usually Allen or Hoch) over a year or more Cost: Free, apart from the book Best for: Self-motivated learners who want a cohort and a schedule without paying for a tutor

GlyphStudy is a remarkable thing: volunteers organise groups that go through a grammar chapter by chapter, with homework and discussion. It's free and it's serious. The catch is pace and drop-out: groups move slowly by design, start only a few times a year, and rely on your own discipline to keep up. If you can, it's the cheapest way to get the "study group" that makes Allen workable.

Free resources worth bookmarking alongside it: the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae (the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy's searchable corpus of Egyptian texts, essential once you're reading real inscriptions), and a good sign chart for the alphabet.

A note on apps and video-only courses. Flashcard apps are fine for drilling signs, and Bob Brier's Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs (The Great Courses, 24 lectures) is an enjoyable overview. But an app that only asks you to match signs to meanings is teaching letter recognition, not reading, and a video series you watch on the sofa won't teach you to read any more than watching a pianist teaches you the piano. Use them as supplements to something that makes you produce.

9. For children and schools: best classroom starting point

Format: Free name translator, printable worksheet, and the free first lesson Cost: Free Best for: Key Stage 2 Ancient Egypt units (ages 7–11), home educators, and museum-trip preparation

Children don't need grammar; they need to discover that the signs stand for sounds and that they can write their own name in a cartouche. That single realisation carries a whole lesson. Our teachers' page has a print-ready three-page alphabet worksheet and a lesson outline mapped to the KS2 unit, and the name translator works on the classroom whiteboard. Keener children of ten and up can happily do the first interactive lesson with an adult beside them.

Comparison at a Glance

Which One Should You Choose?

"I want to read the names and captions on my next museum visit." Do the free first lesson, then the rest of the course. Add Collier & Manley if you get hooked. Two or three months of light practice is enough.

"I want to properly learn the language." Interactive course or Collier & Manley for the first two months, then Allen, with a GlyphStudy group or an Oxford course so someone marks your work. Plan on a year or more.

"I want a qualification." Manchester or Edinburgh. Do a self-paced course first so you arrive already knowing the alphabet; it makes the first term far less bruising.

"I'm teaching a class." Worksheet plus translator for the lesson; the free first lesson for the enthusiasts.

"I have no money to spend." Free first lesson, then GlyphStudy, with the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae as your reading corpus.

The Bottom Line

The course that will teach you hieroglyphs is the one that makes you read and write signs this week and next week and the week after. Everything above can do that; they differ in how much structure and correction they give you and what they cost. Start small and cheap, get the 25 alphabet signs into your head, read a cartouche, and then decide how far you want to go. The first lesson here is free, and if you want the whole course it's a single $14.99 / £11.99, less than the book you'll buy next.