Literacy in Ancient Egypt

Most people in ancient Egypt did not know how to read and write. Since the majority of Egyptians were peasant farmers, they would not have needed to learn to read, and the complexities of the written language would have made it more difficult to learn than most alphabetic writing systems.

Language of the Ancient Egyptians

The ancient Egyptians spoke a language which called now "Egyptian". No one exactly knows the correct pronunciation of this language, which in any event changed greatly over the course of several thousand years (as did the written language), and maybe there were regional dialects and variations in pronunciation as well.

Curiosity Mission in Pictures, Part 3: Launch Prepare & Take Off

On April 2004, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) called for scientific experiments and instruments proposals for a planned Mars Science Laboratory rover mission. Launch was proposed for September 2009. Eight proposals were selected, including instruments from Russia and Spain. Testing of components also began in late 2004, including Aerojet's monopropellant engine with the ability to throttle from 15–100 percent thrust with a fixed propellant inlet pressure.

Curiosity Mission in Pictures, Part 2: The Build & Launch Prepare

Mars Science Laboratory Mission's Curiosity Rover (Right) This stereoscopic anaglyph image was created from a left and right stereo pair of images of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity. The scene appears three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left. The image was taken May 26, 2011, in Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The mission is scheduled to launch during the period Nov. 26 to Dec. 18, 2011, and land the rover Curiosity on Mars in August 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.