characterized, and in its most cursive form seems hardly to retain
any definable trace of the original hieroglyphic pictures. The style
varies much at different periods.
Demotic.—Widely varying degrees of cursiveness are at all periods
observable in hieratic; but, about the XXVIth Dynasty, which
inaugurated a great commercial era, there was something like a
definite parting between the uncial hieratic and the most cursive
form afterwards known as demotic. The employment of hieratic
was thenceforth almost confined to the copying of religious and other
traditional texts on papyrus, while demotic was used not only for all
business but also for writing literary and even religious texts in the
popular language. By the time of the XXVth Dynasty the cursive
of the conservative Thebais had become very obscure. A better
form from Lower Egypt drove this out completely in the time of
Amasis II. and is the true demotic. Before the Macedonian conquest
the cursive ligatures of the old demotic gave birth to new symbols
which were carefully and distinctly formed, and a little later an
epigraphic variety was engraved on stone, as in the case of the
Rosetta stone itself. One of the most characteristic
distinctions of later demotic is the
minuteness of the writing.
Hieroglyphic is normally written from right
to left, the signs facing to the commencement
of the line; hieratic and demotic follow the
same direction. But monumental hieroglyphic
may also be written from left to right, and is
constantly so arranged for purposes of symmetry,
e.g. the inscriptions on the two jambs
of a door are frequently turned in opposite
directions; the same is frequently done with
the short inscriptions scattered over a scene
amongst the figures, in order to distinguish one
label from another.
In modern founts of type, the hieroglyphic
signs are made to run from left to right, in
order to facilitate the setting where European
text is mixed with the Egyptian. The table
on next page shows them in their more correct
position, in order to display more clearly
their relation to the hieratic and demotic
equivalents.
Clement of Alexandria states that in the
Egyptian schools the pupils were first taught
the “epistolographic” style of writing (i.e.
demotic), secondly the “hieratic” employed
by the sacred scribes, and finally the “hieroglyphic”
(Strom. v. 657). It is doubtful
whether they classified the signs of the huge
hieroglyphic syllabary with any strictness.
The only native work on the writing that has
come to light as yet is a fragmentary papyrus
of Roman date which has a table in parallel
columns of hieroglyphic signs, with their hieratic
equivalents and words written in hieratic describing
them or giving their values or meanings.
The list appears to have comprised about
460 signs, including most of those that occur
commonly in hieratic. They are to some
extent classified.
The bee
heads the list
as a royal sign, and is followed by figures of
nobles and other human figures in various attitudes,
more or less grouped among themselves,
animals, reptiles and fishes, scorpion, animals
again, twenty-four alphabetic characters, parts
of the human body carefully arranged
from
to
,
thirty-two in number, parts of
animals, celestial signs, terrestrial signs, vases.
The arrangement down to this point is far from
strict, and beyond it is almost impossible to
describe concisely, though there is still a rough
grouping of characters according to resemblance
of form, nature or meaning. It is a
curious fact that not a single bird is visible
on the fragments, and the trees and plants,
which might easily have been collected in a
compact and well-defined section, are widely
scattered. Why the alphabetic characters are
introduced where they are is a puzzle; the order
of these is:—
(?)
(?)
(?)
(?)
—
—
(?)
(?)
(?)
Three others,
and
had already occurred
amongst the fish and reptiles. There seems to be no logical aim
in this arrangement of the alphabetic characters and the series is
incomplete. Very probably the Egyptians never constructed a
really systematic list of hieroglyphs. 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; but they might some day
prove to represent more truly the usages of mystics and magicians
in designing amulets, &c., at a time approaching the middle ages.
