HI'EROGLYPH'ICS, or HIEROGLYPHS (Lat. hicroglyphicus, from Gk. irpoy?.uctnx.6e, hi croglyphikos, hieroglyphic, from itp9}i.19.1-, hiero glyphos, carver of hieroglyphics, from lEp6s, hieros, ,,X env, gtyphein, to carve). The tern) applied to those systems of writing in which figures of objects take the place of purely conventional signs. and especially used to desig nate the writing of the Egyptians and Mexicans. The system of Babylonia (whence the cuneiform writing developed ) and that of China were like wise originally picture-writings, but were very early simplified and conventionalized, and thus lost their hieroglyphic character. These two sys tems present so many striking analogies to the Egyptian that a connection is often assumed, but these analogies appear merely to afford an illus tration of the tendency of the human mind to run, under certain conditions, in the same chan nel, and this view is strengthened by some analo gies from American pictographs and hieroglyph ics. Hieroglyphic systems are also represented by the monuments of the Hittites and the early Cretans, both as yet undeeiphered; an Egyptian origin would, in these eases, be less improbable than in the cases of Babylonian and Chinese characters. The Phamician alphabet cannot be proved to descend from a hieroglyphic system the names of the letters (ox, house. etc.) seem to have been merely umemotechnie helps for learners. The Egyptian system is the most remarkable of all, because it always retained the most primitive form. although developing to a high degree of philological perfeetion. It is impossible to trace this system hack to its origin in descriptive pictures; such pictures. for ex ample. ns the North American Indians sometimes used for communications. though without de veloping a real writing. The very earliest monu ments of Egypt, anterior to Menes. the first historical king, exhibit the system already per fected. differing in many details from the later crth)graphy, but what were then the principles are the :same as at all later periods. The inven
tion must therefore belong to a very remote age.
The most primitive part is represented by the so-called ideographs or word-signs. Some of In later times the variants increased consul crably, as the scribes were continually inventing new and playful forms of the letters; in Roman times hundreds of signs were in use for the alphabet. but several of the original sounds were lost or confused in later pronunciation. How ever, down to rs.c. 1000 the variants enumerated above were the only ones, and all these sprang up after B.C. 1600. It will be observed that originally the letters expressed only the conso nants, and the vowels were, with the exception of a few vague indications, left for the leader to till in, exactly as in unpainted Hebrew or Arabic. The group hbs, for example, may be read boi,x, hbos, haw.% etc. Later orthography attempted to express the vowels in certain cases, especially in foreign names which demanded a more exact notation, but neither consistently nor success fully. All this adds greatly to the difficulties of the Egyptologists. They have not only to supply the vowels from Greek and other tradi tions, from the corresponding Coptic words, from variants. etc.. but they must also reckon with the tendency of the Egyptian scribes to abbrevi ate and to omit consonants. where they were sup posed to be readily supplied by the reader. For example, henget, 'beer.' is always spelled //qt. See, however, below on the present degree of certainty of reading. Foreign names and words were, in the time of Dynasties IS-22, written in a strange orthography called the syllabic system. The vowels were copiously expressed by placing syllabic signs for every consonant, even where no vowel followed. For example. the Palestin ian name of a city, `labor, was spelled: Sha-ra nta, the word ma rkabt 'ehariot.' (i) ra•lot bu-ti, etc. This wild heaping of vowels is of little advantage to the reader. and has led to many errors.