HIEROGLYPHICS (literally meaning sacred sculptures), a term applied to those representations of natural or artificial objects used to express language, especially those which the ancient Egyptians and Mexicans employed for that purpose. The term hieroglyph would, however, be more correctly applied to these figures. The number of those used by the ancient Egyptians was probably about 1000, and by their means they were enabled to express all the ideas required with correctness, clearness, and facility. They consist of representations of celestial bodies, the human form and its parts in vari ous attitudes, animals, fishes, reptiles, works of art and attire, and fantastic forms. These were either engraved in relief, or sunk below the surface on the public monn meats and objects of hard materials suited for the glyptic art, or else traced in outline with a reed pen on papyri, wood, slices of stone, and other objects. The scribe, indeed, wrote from a palette or canon, called pea, with pens, leash, from two little ink.holes in the palette, containing a black ink of animal charcoal, and a red mineral Ink. The hieroglyphs on the monuments are sometimes sculptured and plain; at others, decorated with colors, either one simple tone for all the hieroglyphs, which are then called mono chrome; or else ornamented with a variety of colors. and then called polychrome; and those painted on coffins and other objects are often first traced out, and then colored in detail. On the papyri and some few inferior materials they are simply sketched in outline, and are called linear hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs are arranged in perpendicu lar columns, separated by lines, or in horizontal, or distributed in a sporadic milliner in the area of the picture to which they refer. Sometimes all these modes of arrangement are found together. One peculiarity is at once discernible, that all the animals,and representations face in the same direction when they are combined into a text; and when mixed up with reliefs and scenes, they usually face in the direction of the figures to which they are attached. When thus arranged, the reliefs and hieroglyphs resemble a MS., every letter of which should also be an illumination, and they produce a gay and agreeable impression on the spectator. They are written very square, the spaces are neatly and carefully packed, so as to leave no naked appearance of background. Gen erally they are to be read from. the,direction in which they face. and follow in the same succession, but many exceptions occur, in which they follow the reverse order, whether written horizontally or vertically, and this at all periods.
The hieroglyphs, in their nature, are divided into two great or those which represent ideas; and phonetics, or those which express sounds. No doubt, at tit?, first commencement of the language, ideographs only were employed; but the earliest known monuments, which ascend to the 3d dynasty above 2,000 years B.C., are filled with phonetic hieroglyphs, showing that at that early period the principle of writing sounds had been completely developed. These hieroglyphs, at the moot developed period of the language, comprised about one-third of the texts. The ideographs are divided into two classes—the simple ideographs, or those which express one idea; and the determinatives, which are used to indicate many. In all instances, these ideographs are occasionally found prec€:'-1 by phonetic groups, which give the sound of the idea they are intended to express In the written language; the simple ideographs being found only preceded by one group; while the determinatives are preceded by many. The pure ideographs arc of various classes: first, those representing the object directly; secondly, those metaphorically conveying the required meaning, as a woman beating a tambourine to indicate "joy," in which the action indicates the effect produced; thirdly, that in which the attribute is expressed by the figure of some object possessing it. as a jackal, to indicate "cunning" or "craft;" a flaming censer, to signify "incense." Or the direct action was often represented; as a,•bird fishing, to express the idea of fishing in general. Such a mode of depicting ideas indetail was only suited for elaborate monuments; and the number of ideographs required to express all ideas would have been so many as to have overwhelmed the memory of the learner, and to have obscured the comprehension of the reader. In order, therefore, to reduce the number of ideo graphs, x certain number of these hieroglyphs were used to express more ideas than one in the principal classes of thought. Thus, a seated man, originally employed to signify titan, was applied to all relationships, functions, and offices of men, as aff, father; sett, brother; mer, governor; hentneter, priest; bak, laborer: the special meaning which it conveyed being shown by the phonetic groups which preceded it. In the same way, all beasts or objects made of leather were expressed by a skin; all precious stones or objects made of the sante by a ring; all actions of locomotion by two legs in the act of walking; and all actions in which the arms were used by an arm holC.Ing a, stick. The
number of these signs may be computed at about 175, and they resemble in their use those of the Assyrian cuuei form, in which, although to a more limited extent, the lead ing classes of thought were determined by a character prefixed to the phonetic group giving the particular idea. Thus, in the Assyrian, all names of men are preceded by it single upright wedge; all countries by three wedges disposed obliquely; and names of horned cattle by a group of five wedges. In the Egyptian system, however, the deter initiatives are always placed after the phonetic groups, and are more numerous. The Chinese system of writing approaches still more closely to the Egyptian, 242 radicals, as they are called, but determinatives, being placed after other groups and sym bols, which indicate the special idea intended. In this last language, the radicals are generally placed to the left. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, every word not expressing an abstract idea, as the verb to be, or the grammatical forms, and pronouns, is accom panied by its determinative, and is incomplete without it. The genius of the writing is that the phonetics and ideographs mutually explain each other. Sometimes, indeed, by a kind of redundant pleonasm, the determinatives are placed after the special ideo graphs, as three rings of metal after a cape used to express gold and silver; three flowers after the lily, to signify lily; and the skin after the goat, to mean goat. The phonetic portion of the hieroglyphs consists, at the best period of writing, of a limited number of signs, about 130, employed as a syllabarium; and although the term alphabet has been often used in speaking of the phonetic hieroglyphs, nothing of the nature of a pure alphabet existed till a latex period, when the Phenicians invented a purely alphabetic system, suppressing the vowels, which the Greeks still further improved by reintro ducing them into their graphic system, and so brought to perfection the invaluable invention of alphabetic writing, at once concise, compendious, and complete. But the Egyptian hieroglyphs comprise two classes of syllables—those ending with vowels, or the so-called alphabeties, and those ending with consonants; or, in other words, of monosyllables and polysyllables. As the monosyllables enter into the composition of the polysyllabic groups. it is evident that they are older than the biliteral or dissyllabic hieroglyphs. The spoken language seems, in fact, to have originally consisted of mono syllables, which were subsequently enriched by agglomeration, and combined into bilit eral and triliteral roots. Several of these monosyllabic words have descended from the ancient language to the Coptic, as ab, a lamb; au, a cow; matt. a lion; art, the sun; pe, the heaven. Numerous words of this class may still be traced as the roots of the more ancient language, but it is obvious that only a few of the most manageable could be for the combined purposes of sound and writing. In some instances, 'wo or tnore seem to have been selected for the same sounds, in order to suit the sty.. of writing, horizontal or vertical signs being required for the careful packing of the grot.7s in the texts. Now, it will be necessary to bear in mind that each of these hieroglyphs of the first phonetic division represents a monosyllable; of which it represents the whole by itself considered- as the initial, but that it was always capable of having the vowel -hieroglyph which followed the initial placed after it. and that in the hieratic or cursive Egyptian writing this was generally the case in order to distinguish the signs. Thie final vowel is, however, generally omitted in hieroglyphic wits, and is said to be inherent, or, ought to be pronounced in the first hieroglyph. The alphabetic sylla barium is as follows: This comprises all the signs which may be considered alphabetic in their nature, at the best period, or from the 4th to the 21st dynasty, when a revolu tion took place in the mode of writing, and about 90 additional signs, taken from the ideographs and syllabics, were added to the preceding alpha. betic, and used indiscriminately—not, indeed, all at once, hut by gradual introductions, from the 21st dynasty till the 2d C. A.D. Nor are all the signs of the preceding alphabet of equal antiquity, or as much used as others. As to the inherent nature of the vowels, it may he observed that A, the commonest, is often written with its complement sr, after it. Of the three forms of the A, the first ex presses the aspirate, the second the nasal, and the third the soft breathing. Besides, too, their final complement, the initial sound, especially of con sonants, probably of those newly intro duced into the system, was placed before them, to explain their use. The consideration of the signs that precede and follow after indeed deter mines the sonal value of certain hiero glyphics which are tints encased and explained by other phonetics.