PICTURE yourself on the banks of the Nile, relaxing in a cybercafé in ancient Thebes. The year is 1460 BCE, Tuthmosis III is Lord of the Two Lands, and all in all it's a pretty good time to be alive. In fact you feel sorry for anyone who isn't Egyptian.

A humble scribe who has risen in the world, you attribute your present good fortune to your farsightedness in taking that Computer Literacy course. Your Web Design business has really taken off, so much so that you have been able to arrange for the building of your own mortuary temple. Of course you don't expect to have to use it yet, but it's nice to know it's there.

As you gaze out over the great green river, wishing someone would invent the mobile phone, you hear a strange phrase echoing in your head Avons of the Heart. You have no idea what these outlandish words mean, but think that it is probably a sign from Thoth, god of writing, languages, laws, calculations and patron of scribes!!! Clearly it would not be wise to ignore so august a figure, so you set to work to design a web page.

The first fruits of your labour are the hieroglyphs above.

You don't think much of my portrait of everyday life in Ancient Egypt? Pharaoh nuff (geddit? GEDDIT?). Oh, all right, then. Please yourselves. Nile desperandum, AAA-HAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, I've been rumbled. The hieroglyphs are courtesy of Egyptian Hieroglyphs, a kewl website that translates words and sentences into hieroglyphs. You can even email the result to friends. Of course, unless these friends are egyptologists, they'll have to visit the site to find out what you've said.

BROKEN LINK ALERT! Sadly the Scribe has to report that Egyptian Hieroglyphs seems to have vanished (Grave robbers? Or is Thoth trying to tell me something?). I shall continue to search for this treasure. In the meantime, visit the wonderful site the Scribe discovered while sailing on the great green river that is the Internet.

The Scribe is no grave robber, and lest I incur the Wrath of Thoth (the Scribe is also a poet) I must credit this wonderful site with the image of my patron god I used to make the background.

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