We present the first multimodal dataset MuMMy, for developing research assistants that can interpret Egyptian hieroglyphic texts. It pairs images with Gardiner codes, transliteration, and English translation at two levels of granularity. We also evaluate several deep learning pipelines across OCR, transliteration, and translation tasks, revealing the complexity of the domain and the challenges posed by error accumulation.

The classification of Egyptian hieroglyphs remains a challenging problem due to the vast variability in writing styles across time periods, regions, and individual scribes. In this work, we present a comprehensive evaluation of hieroglyph classification performance across diverse stylistic domains, highlighting the limitations of current models in generalizing beyond a single style. We introduce a dataset that spans multiple writing styles, ranging from monumental inscriptions to handwritten manuscripts, and assess several near state-of-the-art recognition models. Our analysis reveals significant discrepancies in model performance when exposed to unseen styles, underscoring the need for style-aware learning strategies. This study provides a framework for future research on hieroglyph recognition with a focus on stylistic diversity and serves as a first step toward building vision-language systems capable of analyzing Egyptian hieroglyphic writings.