"Writings in Ancient Egypt" Posted on 05 November 2015 at 03:20 There were several types of Writing in Ancient Egypt. From the earliest Protodynastic Period of Egypt, Egyptian language was recorded both in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and in the Hieratic form. Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic known as lapidary hieratic. Later on, especially during the Ramesside Period, Cursive hieroglyphs also became popular. This form of writing was used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the multi-authored Books of the Dead. This script was closer to the stone-carved hieroglyphs, but was not as cursive as hieratic, lacking the wide use of ligatures. Y4 n R8 S43 Z3 sẖ3 n mdww nt̪r in hieroglyphs The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is sẖ3 n mdww nt̪r or "writing of the words of god." Most remaining texts in the Egyptian language are primarily written in the hieroglyphic script. However, in antiquity, the majority of texts were written on perishable papyrus in hieratic and (later) demotic, which are now lost. From around 650 BCE onward, the Demotic (Egyptian) script developed from Hieratic. In the language's final stage of development, the Coptic alphabet replaced the older writing systems. As Egypt became part of the Greek and (later) the Roman empire, the hieroglyphic writing system was replaced by the Greek alphabet used first to write magical and later Christian manuscripts. A few extra characters had to be added to represent sounds of the Egyptian language which did not exist in the Greek pronunciation of the time (e.g., the phoneme /f/). These characters were taken from the demotic script. Hieroglyphic writing dates to c. 3200 BC, and is composed of some 500 symbols. A hieroglyph can represent a word, a sound, or a silent determinative; and the same symbol can serve different purposes in different contexts. Hieroglyphs were a formal script, used on stone monuments and in tombs, that could be as detailed as individual works of art. In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, called hieratic, which was quicker and easier. While formal hieroglyphs may be read in rows or columns in either direction (though typically written from right to left), hieratic was always written from right to left, usually in horizontal rows. A new form of writing, Demotic, became the prevalent writing style, and it is this form of writing-along with formal hieroglyphs-that accompany the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone. Hieroglyphs were used for most of the surviving forms of written communication during the Old and Middle Egyptian eras, at least for official documents; hieratic was already being used for day-to-day administrative needs during the Old Kingdom. Religious texts during the Demotic era were also typically written in hieroglyphs when they were inscribed on temple walls and stelae; hieratic was used for religious documents on papyrus. (Administrative works were of course written in Demotic.) The last datable hieroglyphic text was written in 394 AD. and they were written from up to down or right to left.
