CHAP. V.

HIERATIC AND DEMOTIC WRITING.

301

CHAPTER V.

66 THEY HAVE TWO QUITE DIFFERENT KINDS OF WRITING, ONE OF WHICH IS CALLED SACRED, THE OTHER COMMON."-Chap. 36.

1. Hieratic and Demotic, the two sorts of letters written from right to left. 2. Hieroglyphics. 3. Three kinds of writing. 4. Hieratic. 5. Demotic, or enchorial. 6. The three characters. 7. First use of demotic. 8. Of sym. bolic hieroglyphics: The ikonographic. 9. The tropical. 10. The enigmatic. 11. Symbolic also put with phonetic hieroglyphics. 12. Determinatives after the word, or name of an object. 13. Initial letters for the whole words, to be called limited initial signs. 14. Distinct from other "mixed signs." 15. Syllabic signs. 16. Medial vowel placed at the end of a word. 17. Earliest use of hieroglyphics. 18. Mode of placing hieroglyphics. 19. First letter of a word taken as a character. 20. Determinative signs. 21. They began with representative signs. 22. The plural number. 23. Abstract ideas. 24. Phonetic system found necessary. 25. Some parts of the verb. 26. Negative sign. 27. Invention of the real alphabetic writing Phoenician. 28. Greek letters. 29. Digamma originally written. 30. Sinaïtic inscriptions not of the Israelites. 31. Tau used for the cross. 32. Materials used for writing upon. 33. The papyrus.

THESE two kinds of writing, written, as he says, from right to left, 1. evidently apply to the hieratic and demotic (or enchorial); for though the hieratic was derived from an abbreviated mode of writing hieroglyphics, it was a different character; as the demotic was distinct from the hieroglyphic and the hieratic. The same is stated by Diodorus (i. 81), who says "the children of the priests were taught two different kinds of writing; " . . . . " but the generality of the people learn only from their parents, or relations, what is required for the exercise of their peculiar professions, a few only being taught anything of literature, and those principally the better class of artificers." Herodotus and Diodorus consider the hiero- 2. glyphics merely monumental; but they were not confined to monuments, nor to sacred purposes. Clemens (Strom. v. p. 555) more correctly reckons three kinds of writing: 1, the epistolo- 3. graphic; 2, the hieratic, or sacerdotal; 3, the hieroglyphic, which was an ordinary written character like the other two, and originally the only one. He then divides the hieroglyphic into, 1, kyriologic

302

99 66

NATURE OF THE DEMOTIC.

APP. Boox II.

(directly expressed by the first letter or initial of the name of the hieroglyphic object), and 2, symbolic, which was either directly expressed by imitation, or written by tropes, or altogether allegorically by certain enigmas. As an example of the kyriologic, he says they make a circle to represent the "sun,” and a crescent for the moon,' according to their direct form;" in the tropical method they substitute one thing for another which has a certain resemblance to it. It is therefore suited to express the praises of their kings in theological myths. Of the third or enigmatic an example may be given in their representing the planets from their motion by serpents, and the sun by a beetle (or more properly by a hawk). The scheme of Clemens may be thus represented:

4.

5.

6.

By direct imitation, or representation ikonographic, or ideographic.

Allegoric, Enigmatic, or Emblematic.

The hieratic, which was derived from the hieroglyphic, was invented at least as early as the 9th dynasty, and fell into disuse when the demotic had been introduced. It consisted of phonetic, and also of symbolic signs. It was written from right to left, and was the character used by the priests and sacred scribes, whence its name. The demotic or enchorial, the epistolographic of Clemens, was a simplified form of the hieratic, and a nearer approach towards the alphabetic system; though we find in it syllabic and some ikonographic or ideographic signs, as the palm-branch and sun for "a year," with others (see the following woodcut, which reads "the year 6, the month Mesoré, the 20th day," or "the 6th year, the 20th day of the fourth month of the waters, of King Ptolemy "); and the several characters still amounted, according to Brugsch, to 275, including ligatures and numerals, or perhaps even exceeded that number. Plutarch is therefore wrong in limiting the number of letters in the Egyptian alphabet to twenty-five (de Is. s. 56). One great peculiarity pointed out by Brugsch is that demotic was used for the vulgar dialect, and is therefore more correctly called demotic than enchorial; but it was also used in historical papyri. It was also invariably written, like the hieratic, from right to left.

The form of the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic, dif

CHAP. V.

IMITATIVE HIEROGLYPHICS,

303

fered more in some characters than in others, as may be seen in the woodcut; where the transition from the first (sometimes through the second) to the demotic may be perceived. It is not quite cer

MOFF 3+Яagy & Hierat. Pal Brucap sexy <ōli Demof.

tain when the demotic first came into use, but it was at least as 7. early as the reign of Psammetichus II., of the 26th dynasty; and it had therefore long been employed when Herodotus visited Egypt. Soon after its invention it was adopted for all ordinary purposes; it was taught as part of an Egyptian education; and after it, according to Clemens, they learnt the hieratic, and lastly the hieroglyphic. But this gradation, if ever observed, could only have been in later times; for in the early period, before the epistolographic, or demotic, was invented, the educated Egyptians must either have learnt the hieroglyphic, or the hieratic character, or have been left without any knowledge of reading and writing, which would have been tantamount to no education at all; whereas we know on the contrary that hieroglyphics were commonly understood by all educated persons. Many too learnt hieroglyphics to whom the hieratic was not taught; nor could the hieroglyphic have been at any time the last they learnt, since the invention of the hieratic was intended to enable the priest to possess a written character not generally known to the rest of the Egyptians.

In symbolic hieroglyphics, 1. The ikonographic, representational, 8. or imitative hieroglyphics, are those that present the object itself, as

the sun's disc, to signify the " sun

; the crescent to signify

the "moon; a male and female figure apply to man and woman when separate, and signify mankind when together, as in this group

with or without the word "rot" (“mankind”).

2. The tropical hieroglyphics substitute one object for another,

to which it bears an analogy, as heaven and a star

for "night;"

9.

10.

breaking his own head with an axe, or a club, for the "wicked,”— suicide being considered the most wicked action of a man. Again, the sun is put for a "day;" and the moon for a month; a youth

66

for a child; a man armed with

; a man pouring out a libation from

هاسر

, a "priest;

a man with

his hands bound behind his back, "a captive

plan of a house, a "temple" or a "house," ; as a valve signified a "door; "the firmament, or the ceiling of a room, studded with stars, "the heaven"; and a man raising his hand, and calling to another, was the exclamation "oh," and the vocative " O (below, p. 312). An egg signified a "child," or "son;" a face "before," or a "chief;" and a lion's fore part "the beginning," and the hindquarter "the end," as in this sentence,

the beginning of the year, (and) in the of the year."

"In

end

3. The enigmatic put an emblematic figure, or object, in lieu of

the one intended to be represented, as a hawk for the "

sun"

a seated figure with a curved beard

for a "god." It is sometimes

difficult to distinguish between tropical and enigmatic hieroglyphics;

as when the two water-plants

are put for the," upper and lower

districts where they princi

country," being emblems of the two pally grew, Upper and Lower Egypt. But it will be evident that the tropical is the nearest of the three to the phonetic, in compass and power of expression, from its being able more readily to express

abstract ideas and facts.

CHAP. V.

DETERMINATIVES.

305

These three kinds of what Clemens calls symbolic (or more pro- 11. perly figure-hieroglyphics, in contradistinction to kyriologic, phonetic, or letter-hieroglyphics), were either used alone, or in company with the phonetically-written word they represented. Thus, 1. the word Re, “sun," might be written in letters only, or be also followed by the ikonograph the solar disc (which if alone would still have the same meaning Re, sun"); and as we might write the word "horse," and place after it a figure of that animal, they did the same after their word htr, or hthor, "horse"

the word "moon," Aah, or Ioh, was followed by the crescent,

So too

"mankind" by the figure of a man and woman.

66

Again, a man in the action of beating was placed either alone or after the verb to beat, hei," to have that meaning. In these cases the sign so following the phonetic word has been called a determi- 12. native, from its serving to determine the meaning of what preceded it. 2. In the same manner the tropical hieroglyphics might be alone, or in company with the word written phonetically; and the expression "to write," skhai, might be followed, or not, by its tropical hieroglyphic, the "pen and inkstand," as its determinative sign; as the man killing himself might be preceded by the word sheft, "wicked." 3. The emblematic figure—a hawk signifying the "sun" -might also be alone, or after the name "Re" written phonetically, as a determinative sign; and as a general rule the determinative followed instead of preceding the names, in which it differed from the Chinese and Assyrian systems. Determinatives are therefore of three kinds,-ikonographic, tropical, and enigmatic.

This union of both phonetic and symbolic hieroglyphics is commonly adopted, and may be considered the remains of the original pictorial writing combined with the phonetic system.

Some hieroglyphics again are used as pure ikonographs, and phonetically also; as the plan of a house, which with a line added to it answers for the letter e, in ei"house," though alone it also represented a "house," or "abode."

Some which are tropical when alone are phonetic in combination, as the sign for "gold" noub also stands for the letter n.

Some too, which are emblematic, are phonetic in words, as the VOL. II.

Σ