This post is part of our Community series

We periodically release updates on this topic.

To view all content relating to this topic, click here to view the full collection.

As you may well know Highclere Castle has a very strong link to Egypt, and particularly Tutankhamun. In 1922 the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter discovered the the ancient tomb, which would truly captured the world’s imagination over 50 years later. The Tutankhamun exhibition is the most successful in the British Museum’s history, with 1.6 million people visiting in 1972 and could be considered the first global world media event. It was, and is, a marvellous story about treasure, tragedy and of course, a curse. Despite the significance of the discovery, the first biography of Howard Carter was not written until 1972!

Egypt has been in our hearts at Highclere for so long and it is wonderful to be able to share this small piece of history with so many people. It might be fun to incorporate an Egyptian aspect into your dinner parties, with hieroglyphs making a perfect addition to your table place cards. Writing them in hieroglyphs will be excellent talking point, or you could perhaps allow guests to add their name in Ancient Egyptian script when they arrive. We have provided a helpful guide to take you through, step by step, the process of translating your name into hieroglyphs.

Image of the Hieroglyphs key with link to the full instructional PDF

It might be of interest to have some background about the use of hieroglyphs and how they are read. Traditionally they were read from right to left or top to bottom, but for ease of translation into Latin scripts we can read them from left to right. It is easy to identify the direction of reading by noticing the direction that the humans and animals are facing – if they are facing left, then the hieroglyphs are read from left to right.

Given the complexity of the translations we would be happy to hear from you with any questions you may have. Please leave a comment and we will try to give the best advice possible…