Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/77

Rh characterized, and in its most cursive form seems hardly to retain any definable trace of the original hieroglyphic pictures. The style varies much at different periods.

child hrd (khrod)     youth face ḥr (ḥor) ḥr [ḥr] eye ỉr.t (yori.t) ỉr ỉr see, &c. mouth r (ro) r r   forearm ꜥ (ꜥei) ꜥ ꜥ  [action of hand or arm] arm with stick n&#7723;t “be strong” nḫt violent action man with stick nḫt “be strong” nḫt violent action lungs and windpipe smꜣ smꜣ heart ỉb  heart heart and windpipe ? nfr sparrow ? &#353;r evil, worthlessness, smallness widgeon sꜣ.t sꜣ sꜣ   bolti-fish ỉn.t ỉn ỉn tusk (1) ỉbḥ “tooth” (2) ḥw “taste” bḥ ḥw bḥ bite, &c. cut branch ḫt ḫt [ḫt] wood, tree threshing-floor sp.t sp    sun (1) rꜥ “sun” (2) hrw “day”  &emsp;(1) sun &emsp;(2) division of time chamber, house pr pr    flat land t’ t’ t’  boundless horizon, eternity libation vase &#7717;s.t &#7717;s &#7717;s cord on stick wz wz wz   basket nb.t nb     looped basket ? k k   sickle ? m’ m’   composite hoe &#91;mr?] mr mr  tillage fire-drill z’.t(?) z’ z’   attendant’s equipment &#353;m&#347; “follow” &#353;m&#347; knife d&#347; d&#347; cut, prick, cutting instrument

Demotic.—Widely varying degrees of cursiveness are at all periods observable in hieratic; but, about the XXVIth Dynasty, which inaugurated a great commercial era, there was something like a definite parting between the uncial hieratic and the most cursive form afterwards known as demotic. The employment of hieratic was thenceforth almost confined to the copying of religious and other traditional texts on papyrus, while demotic was used not only for all business but also for writing literary and even religious texts in the popular language. By the time of the XXVth Dynasty the cursive of the conservative Thebais had become very obscure. A better form from Lower Egypt drove this out completely in the time of Amasis II. and is the true demotic. Before the Macedonian conquest the cursive ligatures of the old demotic gave birth to new symbols which were carefully and distinctly formed, and a little later an epigraphic variety was engraved on stone, as in the case of the Rosetta stone itself. One of the most characteristic distinctions of later demotic is the minuteness of the writing.

Hieroglyphic is normally written from right to left, the signs facing to the commencement of the line; hieratic and demotic follow the same direction. But monumental hieroglyphic may also be written from left to right, and is constantly so arranged for purposes of symmetry, e.g. the inscriptions on the two jambs of a door are frequently turned in opposite directions; the same is frequently done with the short inscriptions scattered over a scene amongst the figures, in order to distinguish one label from another.

In modern founts of type, the hieroglyphic signs are made to run from left to right, in order to facilitate the setting where European text is mixed with the Egyptian. The table on next page shows them in their more correct position, in order to display more clearly their relation to the hieratic and demotic equivalents.

Clement of Alexandria states that in the Egyptian schools the pupils were first taught the “epistolographic” style of writing (i.e. demotic), secondly the “hieratic” employed by the sacred scribes, and finally the “hieroglyphic” (Strom. v. 657). It is doubtful whether they classified the signs of the huge hieroglyphic syllabary with any strictness. The only native work on the writing that has come to light as yet is a fragmentary papyrus of Roman date which has a table in parallel columns of hieroglyphic signs, with their hieratic equivalents and words written in hieratic describing them or giving their values or meanings. The list appears to have comprised about 460 signs, including most of those that occur commonly in hieratic. They are to some extent classified. heads the list as a royal sign, and is followed by figures of nobles and other human figures in various attitudes, more or less grouped among themselves, animals, reptiles and fishes, scorpion, animals again, twenty-four alphabetic characters, parts of the human body carefully arranged thirty-two in number, parts of animals, celestial signs, terrestrial signs, vases. The arrangement down to this point is far from strict, and beyond it is almost impossible to describe concisely, though there is still a rough grouping of characters according to resemblance of form, nature or meaning. It is a curious fact that not a single bird is visible on the fragments, and the trees and plants, which might easily have been collected in a compact and well-defined section, are widely scattered. Why the alphabetic characters are introduced where they are is a puzzle; the order of these is:—

Three others, had already occurred amongst the fish and reptiles. There seems to be no logical aim in this arrangement of the alphabetic characters and the series is incomplete. Very probably the Egyptians never constructed a really systematic list of hieroglyphs. In modern lists the signs are classified according to the nature of the objects they depict, as human figures, plants, vessels, instruments, &c. Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica may be cited as a native work, but its author, if really an Egyptian, had no knowledge of good writing. His production consists of two elaborate complementary lists: the one describing sign-pictures and giving their meanings, the other cataloguing ideas in order to show how they could be expressed in hieroglyphic. Each seems to us to be made up of curious but perverted reminiscences eked out by invention; but they might some day prove to represent more truly the usages of mystics and magicians in designing amulets, &c., at a time approaching the middle ages.