Hieroglyphics

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

Hieroglyphs are a writing system used by the Ancient Egyptians, that contained a combination of logographic, alphabetic elements, and ideographic elements.

Contents 1 Etymology and usage 2 History and evolution 3 Script 3.1 Uniliteral signs 3.2 Biliteral signs 3.3 Triliteral signs 3.4 Examples 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

Etymology and usage

The word hieroglyph comes from the language of Greek ἱερογλυφικά (ʰieroglyfiká), the adjective hieroglyphic, as well as related words such as ἱερoγλυφος (ʰieroglyphos), one who writes hieroglyphs, from ἱερός (hierós meaning "sacred") and γλύφειν (glýfein meaning "to carve" or "to write"). Hieroglyphs themselves, were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικά (γράμματα) / tà ʰieroglyfiká (grámmata), that is "graven characters" on monuments (such as stelae, temples and tombs). Finally, by an overlap in meanings, the word hieroglyph came to be used for the hieroglyphic characters themselves.

The Egyptian phrase for hieroglyphs is <hiero>n:t:r-R8-m-d-w-t-S43-Z1:Z1:Z1</hiero> or more simply <hiero>R8-S43-Z1:Z1:Z1</hiero>(often transliterated as medew-netjer "Divine Words").

Note: The word "hieroglyphics" is derived from the fact that the Greeks called hieroglyphs τά ἱερογλυφικά γράμματα, hieroglyphic letters, but sometimes simply dropped the "letters" part, calling them τά ἱερογλυφικά, "the hieroglyphics" ("letters" understood). While "hieroglyphics" is commonly used, it is technically incorrect.

"Hieroglyph" is also the term used by many to refer to characters in other pictorial writing systems, such as the Maya writing system, although this usage is technically incorrect as well.

History and evolution

Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from circa 4000 BC resemble hieroglyphic writing [1]. For many years the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette, found during excavations at Hierakonpolis (modern Kawm al-Ahmar) in the 1890s, which has been dated to circa 3200 BC. However, in 1998 a German archeological team under Gunter Dreyer excavating at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) uncovered tomb U-j of a Predynastic ruler, and recovered three hundred clay labels inscribed with proto-hieroglyphs, dating to the Naqada IIIA period of the 33rd century BC [2], [3]. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab in Abydos, which dates from the Second Dynasty [4].

Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that functioned like an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes; and determinatives, or ideograms, which narrowed down the meaning of a logographic or phonetic word.

As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed along side the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone contains parallel texts in hieroglyphic and demotic writing.

Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), and after Alexander's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Macedonian and Roman periods. It appears that the misleading quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believe that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge.

By the fourth century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the myth of allegorical hieroglyphs was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in AD 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription is from a temple far to the south not long after 391.

Also in the fourth century appeared the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, a spurious explanation of almost 200 glyphs. Authoritative yet largely false, the work was a lasting impediment to the decipherment of Egyptian writing. But whereas earlier scholarship emphasized Greek origin of the document, more recent work has recognized remnants of genuine knowledge, and casts it as an attempt by an Egyptian intellectual to rescue an unrecoverable past. The Hieroglyphica was a major influence on Renaissance symbolism, particularly the emblem book of Andrea Alciato, and including the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna.

Various modern scholars attempted to decipher the glyphs over the centuries, notably Johannes Goropius Becanus in the 16th century and Athanasius Kircher in the 17th, but all such attempts met with failure. The breakthrough in decipherment was done by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion beginning in the early 1800s. The discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion) provided the critical information which allowed Champollion to discover the nature of the script by the 1830s:

It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word - Letter to M. Dacier, September 271822

This was a major triumph for the young discipline of Egyptology.

Hieroglyphs survive today in two forms: Directly, through half a dozen Demotic glyphs added to the Greek alphabet when writing Coptic; and indirectly, as the inspiration for the original alphabet that was ancestral to nearly every other alphabet ever used, including the Roman alphabet.

Script

The hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliterals (symbols that stood for single consonants, much like English letters) which today we associate with the 26 glyphs listed below. (Note that the glyph associated with w/u also has a hieratic abbreviation.) However, the script had a much larger number of biliterals and a number of triliterals — glyphs which represented sequences of two or three consonants.

Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded-cloth glyph seems to have been originally an /s/ and the door-bolt glyph a /θ/ sound, but these both came to be pronounced as /s/ as the /θ/ sound was lost. A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts.

The traditional transliteration system shown on the left of the chart below is over a century old and is the one most commonly seen in texts. It includes several symbols such as "3" for sounds that were of unknown value at the time. Much progress has been made since, though there is still debate as to the details. For instance, it is now thought the "3" may have been an alveolar lateral approximant ("l") in Old Egyptian that was lost by Middle Egyptian. The consonants transcribed as voiced (d, g, dj) may actually have been ejective or, less likely, pharyngealized like the Arabic emphatic consonants. A good description can be found in Allen (2000). For other systems of transliteration, see transliteration of ancient Egyptian.

Note that, like the Arabic and Hebrew scripts today, few vowels were written. Therefore in modern transcriptions an e is added between consonants to aid in their pronunciation. For example, nfr "good" is typically written nefer. This does not reflect Egyptian vowels, which are obscure, but is merely a modern convention. Likewise, the 3 and ʾ are commonly transliterated as a, as in Ra.

Uniliteral signs

Uniliteral signs
Sign		Traditional transliteration			Phonetic values per Allen (2000)
			Say	Notes	Old Egyptian	Middle Egyptian
<hiero>A</hiero>	an Egyptian vulture	3	a	called aleph, a glottal stop	[l] or [ɾ]	silent, [j], and [ʔ]
<hiero>i</hiero>	a reed	ỉ	i/a	called yodh	an initial or final vowel; sometimes [j]
<hiero>i-i</hiero>	a pair of reeds	y	y	double yodh	no record	[j]
<hiero>y</hiero>	pair of strokes or river (?)
<hiero>a</hiero>	an arm	ʾ	a	called ayin, a voiced pharyngeal fricative	perhaps [d]	[ʕ]; [d] perhaps retained in some words and dialects
<hiero>w</hiero> or <hiero>W</hiero>	a quail chick or its hieratic abbreviation	w	w/u	called waw	[w] ~ [u]
<hiero>b</hiero>	a lower leg	b	b		[b] ~ [β]
<hiero>p</hiero>	a reed mat or stool	p	p		aspirated [pʰ]
<hiero>f</hiero>	a horned viper	f	f		[f]
<hiero>m</hiero>	an owl	m	m		[m]
<hiero>n</hiero>	a ripple of water	n	n		[n]	[n], sometimes [l]
<hiero>r</hiero>	a mouth	r	r		see [5]	[ɾ], sometimes [l] (always [l] in some dialects)
<hiero>h</hiero>	a reed shelter	h	h		[h]
<hiero>H</hiero>	a twisted wick	ḥ	h	an emphatic h, a voiceless pharyngeal fricative	[ħ]
<hiero>x</hiero>	a placenta	ḫ	kh	a guttural sound, a voiceless velar fricative	voiced [ɣ]
<hiero>X</hiero>	an animal belly with tail	ẖ	kh	a softer sound, a voiceless palatal fricative	[x]
<hiero>s</hiero>	a folded cloth	s	s	Old Egyptian sound for "door bolt" is unknown, but perhaps was z or th	[s]	[s]
<hiero>z</hiero>	a door bolt				[θ]
<hiero>S</hiero>	a garden pool	š	sh		[ʃ]
<hiero>q</hiero>	slope of a hill	ḳ or q	k	an emphatic k, a voiceless uvular plosive	ejective [qʼ]
<hiero>k</hiero>	a basket with a handle	k	k		aspirated [kʰ] in some words, palatalized [kʲ]
<hiero>g</hiero>	a jar stand	g	g		ejective [kʼ]
<hiero>t</hiero>	a bun	t	t		aspirated [tʰ]
<hiero>T</hiero>	a tethering rope	ṯ or tj	ch	as in English church	palatalized [tʲ] or [ʧ]
<hiero>d</hiero>	a hand	d	d		ejective [tʼ]
<hiero>D</hiero>	a cobra	ḏ or dj	j	as in English judge	ejective [tʲ’] or [ʧʼ]

Biliteral signs

Biliteral signs
<hiero>Aw</hiero>	<hiero>Ab</hiero>	<hiero>Ax</hiero>	<hiero>E9</hiero>	<hiero>D54</hiero>	<hiero>ib</hiero>	<hiero>Z11</hiero>	<hiero>nw</hiero>
<hiero>in</hiero>	<hiero>ir</hiero>	<hiero>A48</hiero>	<hiero>M40</hiero>	<hiero>V15</hiero>	<hiero>aA</hiero>	<hiero>F16</hiero>	<hiero>aq</hiero>
<hiero>aD</hiero>	<hiero>wA</hiero>	<hiero>wa</hiero>	<hiero>wp</hiero>	<hiero>wn</hiero>	<hiero>wr</hiero>	<hiero>wD</hiero>	<hiero>bA</hiero>
<hiero>bH</hiero>	<hiero>pA</hiero>	<hiero>pr</hiero>	<hiero>pH</hiero>	<hiero>T9</hiero>	<hiero>T10</hiero>	<hiero>mA</hiero>	<hiero>mi</hiero>
<hiero>mw</hiero>	<hiero>mn</hiero>	<hiero>N36</hiero>	<hiero>mr</hiero>	<hiero>Ab</hiero>	<hiero>mH</hiero>	<hiero>ms</hiero>	<hiero>mt</hiero>
<hiero>G14</hiero>	<hiero>md</hiero>	<hiero>nb</hiero>	<hiero>nm</hiero>	<hiero>M22-M22</hiero>	<hiero>nH</hiero>	<hiero>ns</hiero>	<hiero>nD</hiero>
<hiero>rw</hiero>	<hiero>rs</hiero>	<hiero>HA</hiero>	<hiero>Hw</hiero>	<hiero>Hp</hiero>	<hiero>N41</hiero>	<hiero>Hm</hiero>	<hiero>Hn</hiero>
<hiero>Hr</hiero>	<hiero>W14</hiero>	<hiero>HD</hiero>	<hiero>xA</hiero>	<hiero>xa</hiero>	<hiero>D43</hiero>	<hiero>xt</hiero>	<hiero>XA</hiero>
<hiero>Xn</hiero>	<hiero>D33</hiero>	<hiero>Xr</hiero>	<hiero>G39</hiero>	<hiero>V16</hiero>	<hiero>V17</hiero>	<hiero>sA</hiero>	<hiero>Aa18</hiero>
<hiero>sw</hiero>	<hiero>O50</hiero>	<hiero>sn</hiero>	<hiero>sk</hiero>	<hiero>F29</hiero>	<hiero>SA</hiero>	<hiero>Sw</hiero>	<hiero>Sm</hiero>
<hiero>Sn</hiero>	<hiero>V6</hiero>	<hiero>Sd</hiero>	<hiero>qs</hiero>	<hiero>qd</hiero>	<hiero>kA</hiero>	<hiero>km</hiero>	<hiero>gm</hiero>
<hiero>gs</hiero>	<hiero>U30</hiero>	<hiero>tA</hiero>	<hiero>ti</hiero>	<hiero>tp</hiero>	<hiero>T8</hiero>	<hiero>tm</hiero>	<hiero>TA</hiero>
<hiero>D37</hiero>	<hiero>di</hiero>	<hiero>DA</hiero>	<hiero>Dw</hiero>	<hiero>Dr</hiero>	<hiero>Dd</hiero>

Triliteral signs

<hiero>M1</hiero> <hiero>iwn</hiero> <hiero>isw</hiero> <hiero>awt</hiero> <hiero>apr</hiero> <hiero>anx</hiero> <hiero>P6</hiero> <hiero>aSA</hiero> <hiero>wAH</hiero> <hiero>wAs</hiero>
<hiero>wAD</hiero> <hiero>wab</hiero> <hiero>P4</hiero> <hiero>wHm</hiero> <hiero>wsr</hiero> <hiero>N9</hiero> <hiero>mAa</hiero> <hiero>nbw</hiero> <hiero>nfr</hiero> <hiero>nTr</hiero>
<hiero>rwD</hiero> <hiero>HqA</hiero> <hiero>Htp</hiero> <hiero>xpr</hiero> <hiero>xnt</hiero> <hiero>xrp</hiero> <hiero>xrw</hiero> <hiero>xsf</hiero> <hiero>Xnm</hiero> <hiero>Z9</hiero>
<hiero>T11</hiero> <hiero>sbA</hiero> <hiero>spr</hiero> <hiero>M44</hiero> <hiero>zmA</hiero> <hiero>snD</hiero> <hiero>xrp</hiero> <hiero>T32</hiero> <hiero>sSm</hiero>
<hiero>stp</hiero> <hiero>sDm</hiero> <hiero>Sps</hiero> <hiero>Sma</hiero> <hiero>Sms</hiero> <hiero>O42</hiero> <hiero>grg</hiero> <hiero>DbA</hiero>

Examples

Ptolemy in hieroglyphs
Image:Hiero Ca1.png <hiero>p:t-wA-l:M-i-i-s</hiero> Image:Hiero Ca2.png

The glyphs in this cartouche are transliterated as:

p t

o

l m

i i s

Ptolmiis

though ii is considered a single letter and transliterated i or y.

Another way in which hieroglyphs work is illustrated by the two Egyptian words pronounced pr (usually vocalised as per). One word is 'house', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward: <hiero>pr:Z1</hiero> Here the 'house' hieroglyph works as an logogram: it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a glyph is working as a logogram.

Another word pr is the verb 'to go out, leave'. When this word is written, the 'house' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol: <hiero>pr:r-D54</hiero> Here the 'house' glyph stands for the consonants pr. The 'mouth' glyph below it is a phonetic complement: it is read as r, reinforcing the phonetic reading of pr. The third hieroglyph is a determinative: it is an ideogram for verbs of motion that gives the reader an idea of the meaning of the word.

See also

Hieroglyph articles

• Gardiner's Sign List
• List of hieroglyphs
• Hieratic
• Demotic
• Coptic alphabet
• Egyptian numerals
• Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

Egyptian language

• Egyptian language
• Egyptian languages
• Coptic language

Other scripts

• Anatolian hieroglyphs
• Cretan hieroglyphs
• Byblos syllabary
• Middle Bronze Age alphabets
• Maya hieroglyphs

Other

• Ankh
• Thoth
• Egyptology
• Wikimedia Help:WikiHiero syntax

External links

• Glyphs and Grammars Resources for those interested in learning hieroglyphs, compiled by Aayko Eyma.
• Hieroglyphs! Annotated directory of popular and scholarly resources.
• Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary by Jim Loy
• Comprehensive Dictionary of Cartouches for all Egyptian Pharaohs
• GreatScott.com's Hieroglyphs Commercial (free intro)
• Glyphdoctors: Study Egyptology Online! Online courses in hieroglyphs and free discussion forums

References

• Allen, James P. Middle Egyptian: an Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs Cambridge University Press 2000 ISBN 0-5217-7483-7
• Collier, Mark & Bill Manley How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs: a step-by-step guide to teach yourself British Museum Press 1998 ISBN 0-7141-1910-5
• Faulkner, Raymond O. Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian The Griffith Institute 1962 ISBN 0-9004-1632-7
• Gardiner, Sir Alan H. Egyptian Grammar The Griffith Institute 1973 ISBN 0-9004-1635-1
• Kamrin, Janice Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs; A Practical Guide Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2004 ISBN 0-8109-4961-X