DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0293
276 HIEROGLYPHS.
embraces a considerable part of the theology, and chapters of
it are found on coffins, the walls of tombs, tablets, and various
other objects of the dead.
HIERATIC WRITING.
The hieratic characters stand in the same relation to the
Egyptian hieroglyphs as our writing to printed text, the various
hieroglyphs employed being more or less reduced in form and
often much altered in shape. There are fewer abbreviations
used in the hieratic writing tban in the hieroglyphic, and the
number of characters is smaller, the same one often correspond-
ing to two or three hieroglyphs. Eor tbese reasons the study
of the hieratic is very important to a clue knowledge of the
structure of the language, while the rolls hitherto discovered
written in it are of considerable literary interest. It is as old as
the fifth dynasty, and ends about the period of the Antonines.
In all the transactions of ordinary life it was extensively
employed. In it correspondence was carried on; accounts
rendered and annals kept; memoranda, rituals, and probably
all drafts of inscriptions made. It was rarely used for the
same purposes as the lapidary inscriptions,.although one tablet
has an incised hieratic inscription containing a public act of
the eleventh year of the reign of Amenophis III. Sometimes
dedications were inscribed in hieratic, as that of the first year
of Rameses II. at Gebel Selseleh, recording the quarrying for
the palaces of the king.1 It often occurs on slices of stone, on
boards prepared with stucco, or sherds of vases.
U4, 12mo, Paris, 1827; M. Brugscli, Aegyptischen Denkmiiler d. K.
Museums, s. 5i, 12mo, Berlin, 1850 ; Dr. Hinek's loo. cit. ; Rapport de-
ll, le Yicomte de Rouge, Monitcur, Mars, 1851.
1 Champollion, Notice, 255-6.
embraces a considerable part of the theology, and chapters of
it are found on coffins, the walls of tombs, tablets, and various
other objects of the dead.
HIERATIC WRITING.
The hieratic characters stand in the same relation to the
Egyptian hieroglyphs as our writing to printed text, the various
hieroglyphs employed being more or less reduced in form and
often much altered in shape. There are fewer abbreviations
used in the hieratic writing tban in the hieroglyphic, and the
number of characters is smaller, the same one often correspond-
ing to two or three hieroglyphs. Eor tbese reasons the study
of the hieratic is very important to a clue knowledge of the
structure of the language, while the rolls hitherto discovered
written in it are of considerable literary interest. It is as old as
the fifth dynasty, and ends about the period of the Antonines.
In all the transactions of ordinary life it was extensively
employed. In it correspondence was carried on; accounts
rendered and annals kept; memoranda, rituals, and probably
all drafts of inscriptions made. It was rarely used for the
same purposes as the lapidary inscriptions,.although one tablet
has an incised hieratic inscription containing a public act of
the eleventh year of the reign of Amenophis III. Sometimes
dedications were inscribed in hieratic, as that of the first year
of Rameses II. at Gebel Selseleh, recording the quarrying for
the palaces of the king.1 It often occurs on slices of stone, on
boards prepared with stucco, or sherds of vases.
U4, 12mo, Paris, 1827; M. Brugscli, Aegyptischen Denkmiiler d. K.
Museums, s. 5i, 12mo, Berlin, 1850 ; Dr. Hinek's loo. cit. ; Rapport de-
ll, le Yicomte de Rouge, Monitcur, Mars, 1851.
1 Champollion, Notice, 255-6.