Peter Rabbit, or hare beneath a semi-circle, as he is known in the 4,000-year-old hieroglyphic form, learns why it is important to listen to his mother when he is caught trespassing by Mr McGregor, or duck, vertical line, jar stand over mouth, jar stand, lasso over mouth, sitting man.

All other characters appear in hieroglyphic form including Flopsy (horned viper over a lion, lasso, square over door bolt, pair of reeds, sitting woman) and Mopsy (owl, lasso, square over door bolt, two reeds, sitting woman).

Peter Rabbit’s full name is square and semi-circle over mouth, sitting man, folded cloth, scourer over arm, semi-circle, hare.

Peter’s species of rabbit, Lepus cuniculus, was unknown in Egypt and had to be replaced with Lepus capensis, a desert hare well documented in ancient texts.

To add to the confusion, the hare symbol also translates phonetically as “wn”, which is useful for translating words such as “when”.

Richard Parkinson, assistant keeper in the deparment of Ancient Egypt and Sudan in the British Museum, and John Nunn, a former senior anaesthetist at the Medical Research Council, discovered that translating Potter’s most famous work was a linguistic minefield.

Their first problem was that all knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language disappeared between the 5th century and the early 19th century, when Johan David Akerblad, Thomas Young and Jean-Francois Champollion began to decode Ancient Egyptian symbols using the Rosetta Stone.

Peter Rabbit’s translators also stumbled over the absence of Egyptian vocabulary for items common to the Lake District in Edwardian England. “The environment, flora and fauna of England in the time of Beatrix Potter all differed radically from those of Egypt 4,000 years ago,” they explain in the foreword.

“The literary traditions and styles of England and Egypt are [also] very different.”

The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Hieroglyph Edition, will be published by the British Museum Press in April.

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