Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/78

* HIEROGLYPHICS. ea HIEROGLYPHICS. tails of each hieroglyphic according to his in- Uividual taste. But the sculptor* did nut greatly altu.se this lilicrty. and usually kcjit within the bounds l' lact.tlic hi^ns coniinoiily used arc only from live to .?i. hundred in nuiuber. The artists found full play for their fancy in the minor details of exe- cution; in the case of some magnificent l>uildinf,'->. they have actually aesigned and paintc<l every feather of a bird, every fin;;er of a human li<.'ure, «tc., ill inscriptions containing many thousand signs. The decorative clTecl of the brightly painted signs is exquisite. In other cases, how- ercr, when the sculpture had to to inexpensive, the signs were reducc-d to the simplest possible forms; in cheap funerary inscriptions they are often mere indications of figures, and their rec- ognition calls for all the skill and ingenuity of the trained reader. ^^^lile in monumental use the pictorial char- acter of the hieroglyphs always remained distinct, in the writing of books this was not the ease. Here a simpler, more rapid method of writing was rec|uired, and even on the monuments of the First Dynasty we find the hieroglyphs simpli- fied to a few strokes, where the ]>en is used instead of the chi.sel. On papyrus the writing soon assumed a cursive character, liearing no closer resemblance to the original pictorial hiero- glyphs than our cursive script bears to our printed letters. The cursive style thus developed was called hy the Greeks 'hieratic' or the style for sacred writings, in contradistinction to the demotic character (see below), which was ex- clusively employed for profaner matters. This cursive style is found on the earliest books which have been preserved (dating from Dynasty 5). To give an idea of hieratic, we reproduce here the first seven letters of the alphaljet (without variants) in the cursive style of about B.C. 1400. 2,f^iL* One can slill recognize llic original form of the arm. the 6 (leg), and the f. but the two birds have become mere flourishes in which only the boldest fancy can detect a resemblance to the original pictures. Of course, this style of writing changed more than the monumental forms, and cverj- century had its marked peculiarities. The Greek name must not lie misunderstood: all literature, secular and religious, history, novels, love songs, business dwunients, letters, used the more convenient rapid style. Only funerary texts are frequently written in a simplified hiero- glyphic character. It was only after the demotic had become prevalent that hieratic was resen'ed for books of a religious character (after B.C. fiOO). Hieratic runs from right to left like most Oriental writings; in the earliest times, however, it was sometimes written perpendicularly. Demotic, or popular writing, is a later develop- ment of hieratic. The Eg.vptians themselves called it 'the documental or epi-:tolarv style.' as it seems to have been developed in the law courts and offices where the necessity of tachygraphy led to constant abbreviations, until finally a real stenography resulted. Its origin goes back to the seventh centurj- B.c. In B.C. 40(1 it had assumed a convenient form, and came into gen- eral use. so that the Greeks found it employed for everything except religious literature (see above), and called it, therefore, the demotic (the common, popular) style or the enchorial (the writing of the country). In Roman times even religious texts were frequently written in de motic. As spi-eimens we give here the same seven letters of the alphabet which were reproduced abuve in hicralic. Tlic scciiml of the^c characters is more c-omnionly represented by a single vertical stroke. It will be ob^rvetl that two forms of the IctliT p arc given, of which the first is more elabi;rately formcii. The sign representing a crouching lion was reduced to a slanting stroke, etc. Whole groups of five or six hieratic signs were combined in a single flourish. 'ITius the writing became rapid enough to equal in si>eed our mcKlem writing and the stenographic systems of the Romans; but its study was complicated and it became unintelligible where not written very distinctly. The nunit>er of demotic signs was smaller than that of hieratic (not over two hun- dred), l.ike hieratic, demotic was written from right to left. It is a common error to suppose that demotic means 'popular language'; the term properly designates a style of Egyptian writing, and a phase of the language, although documents written in the demotic script are usually com- posed in a later form of Egj-ptian. The Egyptian language, of course, underwent great moilifica- tion< in course of time: the langiage of the ear- liest texts known to us— the religious texts in the pyramids — seems to have olTered gn^at difii- eulties to the Egyptian scholars of about B.C. 2.500. The use of the eontcmporary vernacular lan- guage was rarely allowed in literature, and in general the hierogrammates (sacred .scribes) sought to write in as archaistic a style as pos- sible. After B.C. IflOO they foimd it more and more dilTicult to write the old language correctly, and from about n.r. 1400 to 1100 the living ver- nacular language was useil for letters, legal docu- ments, and entertaining literature. The language of this peri(Kl. the so-called Xeo-Egyptian. has bc<"n treated by Erman. in his yruiifniptisrhe flrnmmalik (Leipzig. 1880). After B.C. 1000 the scribes reverted to an exaggerated archaistic style, and the texts became more and more im- grammatical; the barbarous age began after B.C. 500, and in Roman times the monumental texts are so wild in grammar and orthography that their decipherment is especially difficult. In demotic literature a mixture of ancient and mod- ern language prevaili'd. The vernacular language finally came into literary use in Roman times through the influence of Christianity. The heathen and their priests continie<l to write hieroglyphics on the monuments, hieratic and demotic on papy- rus, almost to the end of heathenism. The last datable hieroglyphic inscription is found in the Temple of Esne (q.v.), and contains the name of the Emperor Decius, a.d. 2,50. A demotic in- scription at Philfp (where paganism lingercil on after the edict of Theodosius. a.p. .370) is dated in the year A.n. 4.53. Even later, some sporadic knowledge of the old writing may have existed, but. stamped with the reproach of heathenism, it soon sank into oblivion. Some attempts to write the living lansiiage in the Greek alphaliet. supplemented by «ome de- motic signs, had Iieen made in pagan times, and we possess a papyrus, containing a horoscope,