You will not learn Egyptian in an afternoon. You can learn to spot a king's name in ten minutes.
Hieroglyphs are not picture-writing in the way people assume. They are mostly phonetic — signs standing for sounds — mixed with signs that clarify meaning. The system was cracked by Champollion in 1822 using the Rosetta Stone, and the key was realising that the names in cartouches were spelled out phonetically.
The cartouche is the single most useful thing to know: an oval loop of rope drawn around a royal name. If you see one on a wall, you are looking at a king or queen. Find a few and you can start telling who built what.
Reading direction is the second trick, and it is elegant. Human and animal signs always face towards the start of the line. If the birds look left, read left to right; if they look right, read right to left. Egyptians wrote in whichever direction suited the layout.
A handful of signs will follow you around: the ankh, life; the djed pillar, stability; the was sceptre, power; the seated figure with a beard, a god; and the folded cloth, the sound "s".
A handful of signs will follow you around: the ankh, life; the djed pillar, stability; the was sceptre, power; the seated figure with a beard, a god; and the folded cloth, the sound "s". Spot those five and a temple wall stops being decoration and starts being writing.
