These signs, it is clear, form no part of the name of Ptolemy, and the position in which they are found suggests that they represent titles. A reference to the Greek version (line 49) shows that Ptolemy is there called "everliving, beloved of Phtha," and it now remains to see if the hieroglyphics mean anything like these words. The sound and ineaning of the were well known from the statements of Greek writers who said that it was pronounced anch, and that it meant "living," or "life." Two of the three characters in the we know to be P and T, and we are justified in assuming that represents the name of the god Phtha, or first sign, f, group, 8, as it is now read Ptah. Now, if f and -99 66 means living" or "life," must mean "for ever," and we must mean "beloved." Of the first group, already know the value of the second sign, T, and of the second group we know that 44 must now be had to Coptic, so that the Coptic (¿.e., Egyptian) words for "for ever" and "beloved" may be compared with the hieroglyphic originals. The common word for "for ever," 46 eternity," etc., is eneḥ, but there is no n in so this will not suit. We do, however, find the word ET, djet, which means "an age," "a long undefined period of time," and this agrees well with the sound of, and shows that the sound of was something like DJ, and that must have a T sound. The common word in Coptic for "to love" is up, mer, and we may therefore transcribe assume that it means something like meanings here deduced for f by meri, and "beloved." As the 44 make good sense in every text in which they occur we are justified in assuming them to be correct. Hieroglyphic writing. The hieroglyph is a picture of an object, animate or inanimate, e.g., an eye, a ram, Now pictures may also represent ideas, ‹.g., leaning on one side represents "falling”; †, a wall a musical instrument, symbolizes "joy, happiness, pleasure," etc.; a seal, represents something of which great care is taken, i.e., “treasure"; a man holding a vessel placed on his head, symbolizes "to bear, to carry";, the sky with a star hanging from it, suggests "night"; and so on. Hieroglyphs used in this way are called ideographs. Every object had a name, therefore each picture, or hieroglyph, was a word-sign, and a list of these would have made a dictionary in the earliest times. At one time all hieroglyphs were syllabic, and the Egyptians had no alphabetic hieroglyphs; and if scribes had needed to write down letter by letter the name of some foreign product, or the name of a foreign king, supposing they did not possess syllables suitable in sound, they would have been unable to do so. In fact the Egyptians needed an alphabet, and the oldest inscriptions of any length show that they already possessed one. About the origin of alphabetic hieroglyphs opinions differ. They probably arose in this way. The sounds of the first letters of the names of certain objects were given to the pictures of such objects, and henceforward the pictures, or hieroglyphs, bore those phonetic values, and so became the letters of an alphabet. Each name chosen for this purpose appears to have consisted of a syllable containing an initial consonant, and one or more vowels. The vowel, or vowels, was dropped, and the name of the object, or the syllable, passed into a purely alphabetic value. Thus is an alphabetic hieroglyph with the phonetic value of B, and it may well represent the consonant of some word like Bu “a place," or Baa "iron." Similarly, which has the phonetic value of R, probably represents the consonant of some word like Ru "mouth," in Coptic Rô; and with the phonetic value of F probably represents the consonant of some word like fa "to carry." Thus we have a series of alphabetic characters or letters. Signs having alphabetic values are used to form words without any reference to their pictorial or ideographic meanings. One of the words for "knife" is sfnt, which is thus spelt Nows is a picture of a chair-back; www. f is a picture of a snail (?); ~ ʼn is a picture of the wavy surface of water; and t is a picture of a human hand stretched out flat; in the word sfnt the picture meanings of the characters play no part, and the signs are used to express alphabetic sounds only. As long as the Egyptians used picture writing pure and simple its meaning was easily understood, but, when they began to spell their words with alphabetic signs and syllabic values of picture signs which had no reference whatever to the original meaning of the signs, it was found necessary to indicate in some way the meaning and even the sounds of many of the words so written. This they did by adding to them signs which are called determinatives. Thus the word āḥā means both "to stand" and "boat," but when the writer wished the reader to give it the former meaning he added to the word a pair of legs A, thus and when s the latter he added the picture of a boat, thus 迎 Similarly men means "to abide, be stable," and also "to be ill," and the meanings are distinguished by the use of the determinatives and, the former signifying "an abstract idea," and the latter "discomfort," or "evil." The following words show the use of the determinatives; actions performed with the mouth. a woman, a god, a performed with a knife, and a pot of unguent or liquid. Hieroglyphs are written in perpendicular or horizontal lines as in A and B. In these examples the words are to be read in the direction in which the birds face, i.e., from left to right. A. 1 These words mean: "If thou wouldst be a perfect man make thou [thy] son well pleasing to God." |