Transformations of Hypergeometric Motives

We consider algebraic transformations of hypergeometric functions from a geometric point of view. Hypergeometric functions are shown to arise from the deRham realization of a hypergeometric motive. The $\mathrm{\ell }$-adic realization of the motive gives rise to hypergeometric characters sums over finite fields. This helps to unify and explain some recent results about transformations of hypergeometric character sums.