Hieroglyphs

“ The women themselves are designated by hieroglyphs 3, 8 and 12. The first woman carries the god A and hieroglyphs 1 and 4 are his regular signs. The second woman has on her back a Kin sign, above that a Yax, and this combination overtopped by a cross between two dots also forms hieroglyph 5; compare the upper section of the same page. That this hieroglyph is nothing else than a designation of god D follows from hieroglyph 7. Finally the fourth woman carries a figure, which has a Moan sign for a head and to which hieroglyphs 9 and 11 certainly refer. ”

“ Take, for instance, the letter pp in Landa's alphabet, ### : here are evidently the traces of a face. The same appear, but not so plainly, in the sign for x, which is ### . Now, if we turn to the ancient hieroglyphics upon the monuments of Central America, we will find the human face appearing in a great many of them, as in the following, which we copy from the Tablet of the Cross at Palenque. We take the hieroglyphs from the left-hand side of the inscription. Here it will be seen that, out of seven hieroglyphical figures, six contain human faces. ”

“ Enigmatic hieroglyphs include all those wherein one object stands for some other object. Thus, a hawk stands for a solar deity; the bird ibis, for the god Thoth; a seated figure with a curved beard, for a god.
Fourthly. Phonetic hieroglyphs, wherein each hieroglyph represents a sound, and is therefore called a phonetic. Each phonetic at first probably stood for a syllable, in which case it might be called a syllabic sign. Thus, a chessboard represents the sound men; a hoe, mer ”

“ It amounts essentially to that which in ordinary life we call 'memory of persons,' and follows almost naturally from a careful study of the manuscripts. For, by frequently looking tentatively at the representations, one learns by degrees to recognise promptly similar and familiar figures of gods by the characteristic impression they make as a whole or by certain details, and the same is true of the accompanying hieroglyphs. ”

“ Opposite her sits the dog which we saw on page 13c. Here (in sign 7) , as on page 13c, the hieroglyph of the dog is combined with a Cimi sign, and this hieroglyph is repeated in 8 with the sign c, which is so closely allied to Cimi.
For the third group the god A should have been represented with the woman, as is proved by sign 11 so peculiarly combined with r as a superfix. To this hieroglyph a is added, doubtless referring to the good days, as if merely to fill space.
The hieroglyphs of the fourth group do not, I think, convey a clear idea as to which deity belongs here. ”

“ In 1821 Champollion, who had continued his study of Egyptian inscriptions, published a work, ‘De l'Ecriture Hiératique des Anciens Egyptiens,’ in which he stated that the hieroglyphs were ‘signs of things and not of sounds.’ Before another year had passed he changed his opinions, and, applying Young's method to an oval containing the name Cleopatra, obtained the hieroglyphs for k and r, and an alternative one for t. ”

“ Plurality is often indicated by a hieroglyph being repeated three times. The letter u is a plural termination; thus neter is god, neteru gods.
Palace (seḥ) festival.
Hall (seḥ) festival. Here used as a determinative to the preceding.
Every syllabic sign possesses an inherent vowel sound, or an inherent consonant sound, or both. The vowel sign is often placed before, and the consonant sign after [Pg 85] the syllabic sign. Such alphabetic hieroglyphs are called complements, and are very frequently used in the inscriptions.
Human Head (Her) upon. ”

“ Full-figure glyphs—
⁠nature 67-68, 188-191
⁠plate showing 188
⁠See also Time periods.
Funeral customs, description 11-12
Future life, belief as to 19
Glyph block, definition, 156
Glyphs. See Hieroglyphs. ”

“ The head forms show greater attention to detail, giving the whole glyph a more ornate appearance. All this embellishment gave way in later times to more simplified forms, and we have represented in this text a stage in glyph morphology before conventionalization had worn down the different signs to little more than their essential elements. ”

“ Examples of glyph elision, showing elimination of all parts except essential element (here, the crossed bands) .
Moreover, there is encountered at the very outset in the study of these elements a condition which renders progress slow and results uncertain. In Egyptian texts of any given period the simple phonetic elements or signs are unchanging under all conditions of composition. Like the letters of our own alphabet, they never vary and may be recognized as unfailingly. ”

“ The period glyph here is represented by an anthropomorphic figure with a grotesque head. Its identity, as representing the kins of this number, is better established from its position in the number than from its appearance, which is somewhat irregular. The kin coefficient is just like the uinal coefficient—an anthropomorphic figure the head of which has the clasped hand as its determining characteristic. Therefore B3 records 0 kins. ”

“ FOOTNOTES:
1 See Introduction to the German translation of the Ebers papyrus, by Heinrich Joachim, Berlin, 1890.
2 The Egyptians had three different kinds of writing: the hieroglyphic, the hieratic, and the demotic. The hieroglyphic style, which is the most ancient and is chiefly to be found on monuments and in religious texts, consists of figures representing every kind of object; the hieratic or sacerdotal style is an abbreviation of the hieroglyphic writing; the demotic or popular style, the least ancient, resulted from further abbreviations of the hieratic. ”

“ There is a true history here, but we have not learned well the alphabet used. Here are doubtless wondrous scenes; but our stand-point is removed by time so vast, the mist of years is so thick before us, that only the ruder outlines can be determined. The delicate tracery, the body of the picture, are hidden from our eye. The question as to the antiquity and primitive history of man, is full of interest in proportion as the solution is beset with difficulties. ”

“ Those who would like to trace the processes by which one alphabet has been developed must be referred to Dr. Taylor’s great work, from which I have abstracted so much.
For the sake of convenience Egyptian scribes developed [220] a hieratic writing from the hieroglyphics. Strangely enough this was twice accomplished, the early Hieratic was truly cursive and much bolder than the later and more delicate, though less modified Hieratic. The former was invented before the period of the Hyskos or Shepherd Kings, and the latter, or Theban Hieratic, arose in the succeeding Ramesidan dynasty. ”

“ They are, however, in one sense, hieroglyphics, being tolerably accurate delineations of men, animals, and instruments. If we are right in our conjectures, the value of the Rosetta stone is incomparably greater than has been imagined. We have no need of hieroglyphics: Roman and Egyptian monuments are full of them. But a primitive alphabet, probably the earliest ever formed in the world, and illustrating an important link in the history of writing,—the adaptation of signs to words,—is certainly a discovery very interesting to any philosophical mind. ”

“ In modern lists the signs are classified according to the nature of the objects they depict, as human figures, plants, vessels, instruments, &c. Horapollon’s Hieroglyphica may be cited as a native work, but its author, if really an Egyptian, had no knowledge of good writing. His production consists of two elaborate complementary lists: the one describing sign-pictures and giving their meanings, the other cataloguing ideas in order to show how they could be expressed in hieroglyphic. Each seems to us to be made up of curious but perverted reminiscences eked out by invention ”

“ So copious an alphabet would have been a continual source of error. The characters, therefore, thus applied, were soon fixed, and the Egyptians practically confined themselves to particular hieroglyphics in writing certain words.
"Out of bad comes good."ToList
Hieroglyphic writing was employed on monuments of all kinds, on temples as well as on the smallest figures, and on bricks used for building purposes. ”

“ Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform inscriptions yet remained, for the most part, but confusion of ornament and meaningless signs. Some little advance, it is true, had been reached during the latter part of the eighteenth century, as to the signification of certain hieroglyphic characters, but these were as yet but conjecture; a groping in the dark, with no means to verify, uncertain, unassured. ”

“ Beside the remains of the picture symbols, the demotic writing employs seventeen simple phonetic symbols and some fifty symbols of syllables. The hieroglyphic and hieratic modes of writing are called on the monuments the "writing of the gods," the demotic is "the writing of the books." For us the difficulty of the hieroglyphics is materially increased by the fact that the Coptic language in the form [Pg 208] accessible to us is removed by thousands of years from the form of words represented by the hieroglyphics of the old and new kingdom. ”

“ I suppose all one can really say is that the people who did these things knew what they were for, but that since they had no alphabet they could not leave a record to explain them to us, and so we are free to make each his own theory to suit himself.”
“That is a very indolent view to take,” she told him over her shoulder. “Scientists and archaeologists are not contented with that sort of reply. They examine and compare and draw deductions, and get at the meaning of these ancient remains. ”

“ The age of the most ancient pictographs and hieroglyphics can only be conjectured, but all give certain indications that they are many centuries old, and the difference between the work of the ancient and the later race leads the observer to believe that the older hieroglyphics were made by a people far superior to those who came after them, and who left no record in symbols, as we have said, with the exception of crude representations of animals and reptiles. ”

“ Hieroglyphics, in their primitive form, are scarcely to be considered in any case as simply a mode of expressing an oral language: they may be a direct and independent representation of our thoughts, that is, of recollections, or sentiments, or intentions, collateral to the representation of the same thoughts by the language of sounds. We find, in many of the Egyptian monuments, a double expression of the same sense: first, a simple picture, for instance, of a votary presenting a vase to a sitting deity ”

“ By far the greater portion of workers in the field of Greek sculpture are concerned at the present time with the morphology of art for the sake of its history. The analysis of forms is utilized to ascertain an historical series, to discover schools, to establish dates. Here we find scarcely a mention of schools or artists, no reference to history and not a date. The analysis of form leads to the interpretation of monuments and the establishment of ideals. It is the physiology, not the history of art. ”

“ The fifty-ninth hexagram, called Hwân ䷺, is formed by the trigrams Khân ☵, representing water, and Sun ☴, representing wind, and it is said on it:— (The symbol of) water and (that of wind) above it form Hwân. The ancient kings, in accordance with this, presented offerings to God, and established the ancestral temple.' The union of the two trigrams suggested to king Wăn the idea of dissipation in the alienation of men from the Supreme Power, and of the minds of parents from their children; a condition which the wisdom of the ancient kings saw could best be met by the influences of religion. ”

“ It is necessary to look closely to distinguish on the smooth walls the hieroglyphic inscriptions, the rows of little figures, little owls, little jackals, that tell in a lost language the history of ancient peoples. ”

“ Egyptian inscriptions show both ideographs, hieroglyphics and alphabetic signs, as there is usually a word spelt out in syllables or letters, and at the end of it the complete word shown as a little picture. The hieroglyphics altered into a style of writing which was not so pictorial about the nineteenth century B.C., and although alphabetical symbols were actually used as early as 4,000 B.C., yet it was very many years later than this that they became of general use. ”

“ The Phœnicians and Hebrews are supposed to have borrowed their alphabet from the Egyptian hieratic writing; and in the transition the irregular character of the markings of the reed pen on papyrus disappeared and monumental regularity took its place, as nearly all of the early Phœnician and Hebrew writing was in the form of inscriptions on stone and metal. But in this transition the letters did not revert to the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol, but simply became an angular, simplified form of the hieratic, so that the A became a V or caret-like form with a line crossing it. ”

“ Warburton, from an attentive perusal of what Clemens Alexandrinus had said on the subject, had, in fact, concluded, in a way highly creditable to his acuteness, that hieroglyphics were a real written language, applicable to the purposes of history and common life, as well as to those of religion; and that, among the different sorts of hieroglyphics, the Egyptians possessed those which were used phonetically, or alphabetically, as letters ”