Egyptian hieroglyphs: Difference between revisions

Hieroglyphs at the Memphis museum with a statue of Ramses II in the background.

Template:Redirect5 Hieroglyphs are a writing system used by the Ancient Egyptians, that contained a combination of logographic, alphabetic, and ideographic elements.

Etymology and usage of term

The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek Template:Polytonic (hierogluphiká); the adjective hieroglyphic, as well as related words such as Template:Polytonic (hierogluphos 'one who writes hieroglyphs', from Template:Polytonic (hierós 'sacred') and γλύφειν (glúphein 'to carve' or 'to write', see glyph). Hieroglyphs themselves, were called Template:Polytonic (γράμματα) (tà hierogluphiká (grámmata), 'engraved characters') on monuments (such as stelae, temples and tombs). The word hieroglyph has come to be used for the individual hieroglyphic characters themselves.

The Egyptian phrase for hieroglyphs is

or more simply

(often transliterated as medew-netjer "Divine Words").

The word "hieroglyphics" is derived from the fact that the Greeks called hieroglyphs Template:Polytonic 'hieroglyphic letters', but sometimes simply dropped the "letters" part, calling them Template:Polytonic 'the hieroglyphics' ('letters' being 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 Anatolian hieroglyphs or the Maya hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphology (archaically "hierology") refers to the study of hieroglyphs or hieroglyphic texts.

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 . 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 , . 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 . In the era of the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, about 700 hieroglyphs existed. By the Greco-Roman period, they numbered more than 5,000 .

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.

Hieroglyphs on an Egyptian funerary stela

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.

In the fifth 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.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum

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

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.

Writing System

Main article: Egyptian language

Engraved hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative: they represent real or imaginary elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but perfectly recognizable in most cases. Champollion, defined the hieroglyphic system as the following:

It is a complex system, a writing that is at the same time figurative, symbolic and phonetic in the same text, the same sentence, I would say almost in the same word.

In fact, the same character can even, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways: as a phonogram (phonetic reading), as an ideogram, or as a determinative (semantic reading). The determinative was not read, but facilitated reading by differentiating the word from its homphones.

Phonetic reading

A bull's head, a snake, a hand...

This is when a character is read independently from its meaning (according to the principle of the rebus.) Phonograms are formed, whether with one consonant (signs called mono- or uniliteral) or by two consonants (biliteral signs) or by three (triliteral signs). The 24 uniliteral signs make up the hieroglyphic pseudo-alphabet. Hieroglyphic writing appears as an abjad – it does not write out the vowels, in contrast, for example, to cuneiform.

Thus, hieroglyphic writing representing a duck is read as sȝ, because these are the consonants of the word indicating this animal. One could nevertheless use the sign of the duck without a link to the meaning in order to represent the phonemes "s" and "ȝ" at the same time (independently vowels which could accompany these consonants) and in this way write words like this: sȝ, "son" or, complementing other signs that could be detailed further on in the text, sȝ, "keep, watch", sȝṯ.w, "hard ground":

– the character sȝ;

– the same character used only in order to signify, according to the context, "duck" or, with the appropriate determinative, "son", two words having the same consonants; the meaning of the little vertical stroke will be explained further on:

– the character sȝ in the vein of the word sȝw, "keep, watch"

Hieroglyphs are written from right to left, from left to right, or from top to bottom, the usual direction being from right to left. The reader, in order to get the sense of the text, must consider the direction in which the asymmetrical hieroglyphs are turned. For example, when human figures and animals, easily spotted, are turned to the left, they must be read from left to right, and vice versa.

Words are not separated by blanks or by punctuation marks. However, certain characters appear (especially at the end of words) that sometimes make it possible to distinguish words. It is nevertheless evident that only a solid understanding of the language and of the syntax allows the reader to cut the text into words.

Unilaterals

Further information: Egyptian unilateral signs

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. It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never made the jump to that step and never simplified their complex writing into an alphabet.

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 "ȝ" 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 "ȝ" 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 . 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 ȝ and ʾ are commonly transliterated as a, as in Ra.

Biliteral signs

Further information: Egyptian bilateral signs

Triliteral signs

Further information: Egyptian trilateral signs

Phonetic complements

Egyptian writing is often redundant: in fact, it happens very frequently that a word might follow several characters writing the same sounds, in order to guide the reader. For example, the word nfr, "beautiful, good, perfect", could only be written by means of a unique triliteral which was read nfr;

However, it is considerably more common to add to this triliteral the uniliterals for f and r. The word is this written nfr+f+r but one reads nfr.

Redundant characters accompanying biliteral or triliteral signs are called phonetic complements. They are placed in front of the signs to finish them (rarely), after the sign (as a general rule) or they even frame it—thus serving as an aid to the reader, inasmuch as the scribe, for reasons of calligraphy, would sometimes invert the order of the signs (see below):

– mdw +d +w (the complementaries are placed after the sign) → it reads mdw, "tongue"

– ḫ +p +ḫpr +r +j (the complementaries frame the sign) → it reads ḫpr.j, "Khepri".

Notably, phonetic complements allow the reader to differentiate between homophones: in fact, the signs don't always have a unique reading. For example, "the seat,"

– This can be read st, ws and ḥtm, according to the word in which it is found. The presence of phonetic complements—and of the suitable determinative—allows us to know which reading will follow st –

– st, written st+t ; the last character is the determinative of "the house" or that which takes us there, "seat, throne, place".

– st (written st+t ; the last character is "the egg", determinative of the name of the goddess Isis), "Isis", ws –

wsjr (written ws+jr, with, as a phonetic complement, "the egg", which is read jr, following the determinative of "god"), "Osiris", ḥtm –

ḥtm.t (written ḥ+ḥtm+m+t, with the determinative of "the jackal"), a kind of wild animal, perhaps a bear,

ḥtm (written ḥ+ḥtm+t, with the determinative of the flying bird), "to disappear". Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to Ancient Egyptian: in this case, it is not rare for writing to adopt a compromise in notation, the two readings being indicated jointly. For example, the adjective bnj, "sweet" became bnr. In Middle Egyptian, one can write

bnrj, which is correctly read as bnr, the j not having been saved except in order to keep a written connection with the ancient word (in the same fashion as the English-language words through, knife, or victuals, which are no longer read the way they are written.)

Semantic reading

Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning: in this instance logograms are being spoken (or ideograms) and semagrams; the latter are also called determinatives). (cf. Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press (1995), p. 13)

Logograms

A hieroglyph used as a logogram defines the object of which it is an image. Logograms are therefore the most frequently used common nouns; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating their status as a logogram (the usage of a vertical stroke is further explained below); in theory, all hieroglyphs would have the ability to be used as logograms. Logograms can be accompanied by phonetic complements. Here are some examples:

rˁ, "sun"

pr, "house"

swt, "reed" - the t is the phonetic complement.

ḏw, "mountain", etc

In some cases, the semantic connection is indirect (metonymic or metaphoric):

nṯr, "god" ; the character in fact represents a temple flag (standard)

bȝ, " bâ" (soul) ; the character is the traditional representation of a "bâ", a bird with a human head

dšr, "flamingo"; the corresponding phonogram means "red", and the bird is associated by metonymy with this color.

Determinatives

Determinatives or semagrams are placed at the end of the word. These mute characters serve to clarify the semantic domain of the word, its lexical field, in order to sharpen its meaning: homographic characters being very common (even more frequently written than the consonants by themselves), the recourse to determinatives is crucial. If a similar procedure existed in English, homographic words would be followed by an index which would not be read but which would fine-tune the meaning: "retort chemistry" and "retort [rhetoric]" would thus be distinguished.

A number of determinatives exist: divinities, humans, parts of the human body, animals, plants, etc. Certain determinatives possess a literal meaning and a figurative meaning. For example, a roll of papyrus,

is used to define "books," but also abstract ideas. The determinative of the plural is a shortcut to signal three occurrences of the word, that is to say, its plural (since the Egyptian language was familiar with a dual, sometimes indicated by two strokes). This special character is explained below.

Here are several examples of the use of determinatives borrowed from the book, Je lis les hiéroglyphes ("I am reading hieroglyphics") by Jean Capart, which illustrate their importance:

nfrw (w and the three strokes are the marks of the plural: [literally] "the beautiful young people", that is to say, the young military recruits. The word has as a determinative:

The determinative is one of babies and children.

nfr.t (.t is here the suffix which forms the feminine): "the nubile young woman", with

as the determinative of the woman;

nfrw (the tripling of the character serving to express the plural, flexional ending w) : "foundations (of a house)", with the house as a determinative,

;

nfr : "clothing," where

is the determinative for lengths of cloth;

nfr : "wine" or "beer,"

with a jug as the determinative.

All these words have a meliorative connotation: "good, beautiful, perfect." A recent dictionary, the Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond A. Faulkner, gives some twenty words which are read nfr or which are formed from this word—proof of the extraordinary richness of the Egyptian language.

Additional signs

Replacement stroke

A character is sometimes judged to be offensive: "deliver (birth)."

Offensive characters, funerals, taboos, rare or complex, can be replaced by a slanted stroke:

• the verb

ms(j), "deliver" (as in a birth), may be written

the determinative of the woman giving birth (the last character) being sometimes deemed offensive;

• the name

m(w)t, "Death, to die", will also be written

to avoid the determinative of "the enemy on the ground" (last character), a funerary sign.

Simple examples

nomen or birth name
Ptolemy in hieroglyphs
Era: Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC)

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:

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:

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

• Collier, Mark & Bill Manley (1998). How to read Egyptian hieroglyphs: a step-by-step guide to teach yourself. British Museum Press. ISBN 0-7141-1910-5.
• Faulkner, Raymond O. (1962). Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. The Griffith Institute. ISBN 0-9004-1632-7.
• Kamrin, Janice (2004). Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs; A Practical Guide. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-4961-X.