Writing

For thousands of years the picture language of the Ancient Egyptian Civilisation could not be read. The priests who had formed the script were long dead and despite extensive study of scholars it seemed their secrets had died with them.

Then, in 1799, a large black basalt stone was discovered near the town of Rosetta by a gang of soldiers. This key to unlocking the secret of the hieroglyphs had been built into an old wall. The same inscription was written in three different scripts, hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek. Since Greek was a known language, it was clear that the stone would be useful in deciphering.

For twenty years various scholars attempted to de-code the script. Some success was achieved when several names were recognised as being written in oval rings (cartouches) in the hieroglyphic texts and could be matched up with their Greek equivalents. However, it was not until the Frenchman, Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832) took up the challenge that the code was cracked.

The language

Egyptian is a mixture of African and Asiatic languages. It was first written down in the late fourth millennium BC and continued in use until about the 11th century AD (over 4,000 years). It stopped being spoken in the Middle Ages, when Arabic took over. However, the old language is still used in the liturgy of the Coptic Church in Egypt.

Part of the reason why we know so much about Ancient Egypt is because so much written material survives. Many texts were written on potsherds, wooden boards or flakes of limestone. Papyrus was also used, from which word we get the word 'paper'. The long stems of the plant, which grew by the Nile, were cut into pieces about 30cm long. The rind was removed and the pith cut into thin slices. The strips were placed side by side and then a second layer placed on the top at right angles to the first. The two layers were pressed or beaten together and the sap from the pith meant they stuck together. Once dry the sheets could be used or several sheets pasted together to make a role.

Scribes would carry their reed brushes in a palette. The ends of the reeds would be chewed to make a brush. This would hold black ink, made out of carbon, and red ink made out of ground red ochre. The solid cakes of ink would be mixed with a solution of gum so that they stuck when dry.

The four different scripts

When we think if Egyptian writing, we usually imagine the picture writing known as hieroglyphs. However, by the late period of Egyptian civilisation, there were four main types of script: hieroglyphic, hieratic demotic and coptic. Hieratic and demotic are shorthand types of heiroglyphs. In the Roman period, all three were superseded by Coptic, which is based on the Greek alphabet.

Heiroglyphs

The earliest hieroglyphs appear around 3100-3000BC. They are short label-texts on stone and pottery objects. The latest dateable types are found in a temple inscription on the island of Philea cAD394. As hieratic developed, hieroglyphic was increasingly confined to religious and monumental contexts. For this reason, the ancient Greeks called the script ta hiera grammata, 'the sacred letters'.

The signs of the hieolyphic script are mainly pictures, some of which stand for a meaning or idea, others stand for a sound. Some words were also put together from two or more words which had a similar sound. For example, in English we might write the word 'belief' by drawing a bee and then a leaf. There are also symbols which give the general sense of the word coming before it. Only the consonants are written down. This means it is often difficult or even impossible to guess how the words would have sounded.

The number of hieroglyphs varied from time to time. Although there was a core of standard signs, new signs were invented as required while others fell out of use. For example the New Kingdom saw the introduction of the horse and chariot and so a sign was produced for it. Altogether over 6,000 signs are known, though at any onetime only about a thousand were used.

Hieroglyphs were written either in columns or in horizontal lines. There are no punctuation marks or spaces dividing words. Usually signs are read from right to left and from top to bottom. A clue to the direction of reading is to start in the direction of where human or animal hieroglyphs are facing. They were grouped into imaginary squares or rectangles so as to appear pleasing. To reduce the occurrence of gaps, sometimes a word would be written in full or abbreviated, Occasionally too hieroglyphs are switched round to make the spacing better. Words for high status items such as king or god would come before other words, eventhough they would not do so in speech.

The Egyptians called hieroglyphs 'writing of the divine words' and the word given to the individual hieroglyph was the same name as that sometimes used to mean a picture of an item in Egyptian art.

Hieroglyphs were believed to have the power to bring to life what they depicted, therefore to destroy the name of a dead person was to destroy their existence in the afterlife. At various times in Egyptian history, names of previous rulers are mutilated or removed by vengeful successors. Heiroglyphs could also be mutilated to prevent them harming the dead. Thus the heads of snakes would be ommitted.

Other hieroglyphs were supposed to be lucky and were worn as amulets by the living and dead.

Hieratic

Hieratic is a simplified version of hieroglyphs, and early forms look very similar. It was used for administration and business though in Greek times it was only used for religious texts.

Hieratic seems to go back to the very beginnings of Egyptian writing. It was used for 'day-to-day' script for nearly two and half thousand years until taken over by demotic about 600BC. After that it was only used in religious documents, which is why it was called hieratika 'priestly', by the Greeks. The latest known hieratic documents are religious paapyri of the third century AD.

Demotic

The name demotic comes from the Greek demotika 'popular' script and was used for 'day-to-day' purposes from about 600BC. The script developed out of Egyptian hieratic, The latest demotic inscription is a graffito in the temple of Philaae dated to AD 450.

Coptic

During the Roman and Christian phase, Coptic was used. The name 'Copt' is from the Arabic gubti which is a corruption of the Greek Aiguptios meaning 'Egyptian'. It consists of twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet with six added characters representing Egyptian sounds not known to Greek. The earliest form of Coptic, dated to the end of the first century AD was used to write magical texts, probably because it was thought that Coptic would show as accurately as possible how to pronounce the magic words.

There are very many surviving Coptic texts, many of which come from monasteries and concern Biblical topics. Coptic is always written from left to write with no gaps between words and little punctuation.

Literacy

It has been estimated that in Pharaonic Egypt less than 1 per cent of the population would have been literate with about 10% in the Graeco- Roman Period. New Kingdom school texts show that reading and writing was learned by copying out well-known 'classics' at first in cursive hieroglyph and then in hieratic script. Papyrus was too expensive for beginners, so potsherds and flakes of limestone (ostraka) were used. Training to be a scribe took 12 years. Scribes had certain privileges including relief from taxes.