The ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs are one of the recognised systems of writing in the world. They are the doorway into ancient Egypt and have come to fascinate us all on their own. For centuries these hieroglyphs were unreadable to us until a French scholar, Pierre-Francois Champollion, made the remarkable discovery of how to decipher them, enabling us to bring the ancient writings back to to life again.
Hieroglyphs were first used to record the Egyptian language at least 5,000 years ago and it is still argued amongst archaeologists whether Egyptian hieroglyphs or the ancient cuneiform script (found in Iraq) are the earliest examples of writing. In recent years, this argument has been swayed to the side of the hieroglyphs, due to new archaeological evidence.
Despite the fact that there were many different dialects up and down the River Nile, the ancient Egyptian language was the only language written in hieroglyphs. It lasted for over 4,000 years and underwent many different changes.
The language, and subsequently the hieroglyphs, is divided into various states – Old Egyptian was spoken before 3,000 BCE and at this time, the hieroglyphs used consist of simple lists and labels. This period lasted for 500 years.
Middle Egyptian (also called Classical Egyptian) was spoken from 2100 BCE for 500 years. From 1600 BCE Late Egyptian replaced the Middle Egyptian, although the previous language was used right up until the Roman period.
Around 650 BCE, Late Egyptian developed into the writing system which is known as demotic, which dervives from the ancient Greek word meaning ‘popular’. After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, Greek became the official language and both demotic and Greek were spoken alongside each other. The final phase of the Egyptian language was Coptic which emerged around 100 CE which simply means ‘Egyptian’.
The languages that were spoken in ancient Egypt are important into understanding the history of the hieroglyphs. The written system was much slower to develop than the oral language. Despite the transition of spoken Old Egyptian to Middle Egyptian, the hieroglyphs continued to be used as the formal language for funerary, monumental and religious inscriptions.
It is the hieroglyphs from the Middle Egyptian language that is mostly studied today. “Among the more striking characteristics of hieroglyphic writing is the separateness or discreteness of its elements. In the first place, the phonetic and ideographic components are usually presented as individual signs; secondly, if the constituent parts of the signs sometimes combine di-verse elements or points of view, they are generally fitted together in an appropriate fashion, even if it does not always respect the nature of whatever is represented”.
During the Archaic Period emblematic writings of names are particularly characteristic of the early First Dynasty. One of the features of hieroglyphs at this time is the first sign of combining phonetic and ideographic composites. In the Old Kingdom, there are many examples of closed composites where “identification of a structure is framed by its walls”.
The hieroglyphs branched out into another form of writing, known as hieratic. This cursive or ‘flowing’ handwriting developed around 2600 BCE and was used as a quicker means of writing when needed as hieroglyphs was too burdensome for everyday use.
This style of writing also changed over the centuries and it is these changes which help scholars estimate when a particular text was written. They were used by a reed pen and ink written mostly on papyrus, but also on pieces of broken pottery. Because hieratic is a simplified version of hieroglyphs, it is quite possible to translate and convert it into its hieroglyphic sense characters.
It was hieratic which later developed into demotic. This type of writing in no way resembles the hieroglyphs and so cannot be used to convert hieroglyphs to study the ancient texts. It replaced hieratic around 650 BCE, and used extensively for business purposes.
It was also used by reed pen, ink and papyrus, but also came to be used on monument inscriptions because very few people at this time could understand hieroglyphs. Consequently, the famous Rosetta Stone was erected in three different languages. Demotic began to be used less and less as the years went on and the last known inscription was carved in 452 CE at Philae.
Hieroglyphs themselves began to die out during the Roman period when the last pharaoh, Queen Cleopatra VII committed suicide. At this time, the hieroglyphs were mainly used by scribes in the temples and did not continue when the Roman Christians closed down the pagan temples. The last dated hieroglyphic inscription was at Philae, dated on 24th August 394 CE.
After this, Coptic was the only means in which to record the oral language of the Egyptians. The skills that were needed to read, write and understand the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were lost until 1822, when Pierre-Francois Champollion unlocked the means to understand them once again.
Bibliography:
Fischer, Henry G. (1977) The Evolution of Composite Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt, Metropolitan Museum Hournal, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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