Q&A
When were the last hieroglyphics written?
• SHORT ANSWER
Written? The fourth century. But Egyptian writing had to wait over 14 centuries, and some clever decipherment, to be read again
• LONG ANSWER
On a wall at the ancient Egyptian temple complex of Philae, an inscription depicts the god Mandulis, carved on behalf of a priest named Nesmeterakhem (or Esmet-Akhom). Next to it are hieroglyphics that give the date as the “Birthday of Osiris” in the “year 110”, or 24 August AD 394. The so-called ‘graffito of Esmet-Akhom’ (pictured) also features the words “for all time and eternity”, which seems apposite given it is the last example of the picture-heavy script.
By AD 394, there would not have been many people who understood hieroglyphics, let alone used them. The Roman emperor Theodosius had banned pagan religion and so brought millennia of Egyptian deities and beliefs to an end, as well as its writing. Hieroglyphics remained a lost language until the 19th century, when brilliant philologists like Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion – bolstered by the discovery of the Rosetta Stone – were finally able to decipher the mysterious signs.