DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5538#0276
256 PHARAOHS, FELLAHS, AKD EXPLORERS.
as gummi, and now it is " gum." This is the gum which
we call "gum-arabic;" and it continues to be an article of
commerce, exported from the Soudan through Egypt, to
this day. At Assuan, on the frontier of Nubia, we may
see the swarthy Soudanese traders camping out, surrounded
by great bales of this gum sewn up in buffalo hides, waiting
for the cargo-boats which shall carry their goods to Cairo,
just as in ancient days they journeyed with the self-same ar-
ticle of tribute or commerce to Thebes and Memphis.
This brief sketch of the origin and development of the
hieroglyphic writing has already run to so great a length
that I must pass but lightly over much else on which I would
fain have dwelt longer. Nothing has yet been said about
the cursive writings of the Egyptians; but they had two cur-
sive writings—namely, the " hieratic," and the " demotic."
For, as time went on, and the requirements of social and po-
litical life became more complex, there inevitably arose the
demand for a popular script. It would have been impossible
for literature to flourish, as it did flourish in Egypt from the
Eleventh Dynasty onward, had the scribes, the poets, the let-
ter-writers, and the professional copyists been fettered by a
system so complicated and so cumbrous as the hieroglyphic.
They were bound to discover some way of abridging it—of
rendering it more flexible, more rapid, more simple. At what
time they made their first efforts in this direction we know
not. But we do know that by the time of the Eleventh Dy-
nasty they were already in possession of a bold cursive writ-
ing, and of a material upon which to employ it. That writing
bears the same relation to the hieroglyphic writing as our
running-hand bears to printed matter. It is known as the
hieratic script; and the material invented for the use of the
scribe was papyrus.
Just as our own systems of cursive writing have undergone
many changes in the course of centuries, so the hieratic
writing of the Egyptians varied from age to age, the ten-
dency of these variations being persistently in the direction
of economy. It was massive and square-cut under the Elev-
as gummi, and now it is " gum." This is the gum which
we call "gum-arabic;" and it continues to be an article of
commerce, exported from the Soudan through Egypt, to
this day. At Assuan, on the frontier of Nubia, we may
see the swarthy Soudanese traders camping out, surrounded
by great bales of this gum sewn up in buffalo hides, waiting
for the cargo-boats which shall carry their goods to Cairo,
just as in ancient days they journeyed with the self-same ar-
ticle of tribute or commerce to Thebes and Memphis.
This brief sketch of the origin and development of the
hieroglyphic writing has already run to so great a length
that I must pass but lightly over much else on which I would
fain have dwelt longer. Nothing has yet been said about
the cursive writings of the Egyptians; but they had two cur-
sive writings—namely, the " hieratic," and the " demotic."
For, as time went on, and the requirements of social and po-
litical life became more complex, there inevitably arose the
demand for a popular script. It would have been impossible
for literature to flourish, as it did flourish in Egypt from the
Eleventh Dynasty onward, had the scribes, the poets, the let-
ter-writers, and the professional copyists been fettered by a
system so complicated and so cumbrous as the hieroglyphic.
They were bound to discover some way of abridging it—of
rendering it more flexible, more rapid, more simple. At what
time they made their first efforts in this direction we know
not. But we do know that by the time of the Eleventh Dy-
nasty they were already in possession of a bold cursive writ-
ing, and of a material upon which to employ it. That writing
bears the same relation to the hieroglyphic writing as our
running-hand bears to printed matter. It is known as the
hieratic script; and the material invented for the use of the
scribe was papyrus.
Just as our own systems of cursive writing have undergone
many changes in the course of centuries, so the hieratic
writing of the Egyptians varied from age to age, the ten-
dency of these variations being persistently in the direction
of economy. It was massive and square-cut under the Elev-