The culture of the ancient Egypt it is admired and studied around the world. The writing system of this time has varied over the centuries, although the best known type is the hieroglyph. In this article, we explain the history and characteristics of each method.
Below you have an index with all the points that we are going to deal with in this article.
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Types of ancient Egyptian writing
The Egyptian language was present from 3.000 BC to the XNUMXth century AD Therefore, it was used during thousands of years and it underwent different modifications.
Its meaning was a mystery until, in 1799, an expedition by Napoleon discovered the Rosetta Stone, a large rock on which appears a text written in ancient hieroglyphics, Demotic Egyptian and Ancient Greek.
Thanks to this, Jean-François Champollion was the first person to decipher Egyptian writing, specifically in 1822. Since then, interest in this culture has never stopped.
Next, we explain the different types that occurred throughout the history of ancient Egypt, as well as its evolution and characteristics.
Hieroglyphic
Hieroglyphic writing was the first to develop. It derives from pictography, in which objects are represented based on drawings. In total, this way of writing took about 750 signs. This system is interesting for many people and even for children.
The writing system was complex, as it was made up of three different components:
- Ideograms: its meaning was the same element it was representing. For example, to represent a cat, a cat was drawn. These drawings also represented abstract ideas.
- Phonograms: representation of sounds. It had alphabetic signs (one letter) and syllabic signs (two or three consonants).
- Determinative: as some symbols had more than one meaning, determinatives were used, signs that indicated what type of object the represented icon belonged to.
In the case of this image, we see the sign of the Eye of Horus, which symbolizes the triumph of good over evil. On the other hand, we can observe a circle on the god Ra, which is called Shen and represents eternity.
Due to its difficulty, most of the inhabitants could not read the hieroglyphs, only the priests, army officers, civil servants, scribes and the pharaohs.
This type of writing was used to make inscriptions on monuments, pyramids, sarcophagi, tombs and sculptures. Therefore, it was an essential element of art. It had a sacred value, since it was known as the «language of the gods«.
The texts were written in any direction, except from bottom to top, and the sentences were organized in lines and columns. There were no punctuation rules, so the signs were grouped into squares. To indicate the beginning of the text, a human or animal shape was drawn. In the following photo you can see an example of an inscription made horizontally.
No remains of Egyptian musical writing have been preserved, since although it was important in religious ceremonies, it was transmitted and taught orally, without putting anything in writing.
Hieratic
This type of writing is an abbreviated form of hieroglyphic and was used in a complementary way to it. It is more simple, which makes rendering it easier and faster.
To write a sharpened reed was used as a brush and black ink. Red ink was reserved for highlighting words or passages in the text. At first it was written from top to bottom, but later it was done horizontally and from right to left.
Its purpose was to be the way to write religious, administrative, scientific and literary texts. Therefore, it was commonly used by scribes and priests.
The most used materials were papyrus and ostracas, ceramic fragments. Likewise, texts on linen, wood, stone and leather have also been discovered.
Demotic
It is a shortened form of the hieratic and the last exclusively Egyptian type of writing. It developed from the XNUMXth century BC and continued until the XNUMXth AD, when it was replaced by the Greek.
It is considered an abbreviation of the spoken language. The signs were more schematic and had a faster and easier layout. It was written from right to left on materials such as papyrus.
It was used in day-to-day business, commercial transactions, and literature, so hieratic was only continued to be used for religious texts.
Coptic
In the last phase of Ancient Egypt we find the Coptic writing, which has its origin in the second century BC. Years later it was used by the Christians who lived in that area.
It was made up of the different letters of the Greek alphabet, in addition to six demotic characters, since some sounds used did not have their Greek equivalent.
During this time there were two dialects different The Sahidic, typical of the Alto Egypt, and the Bohairic, from Lower Egypt. Its use declined to give way to Arabic in the XNUMXth century.
For this reason, currently, in Egypt Egyptian Arabic is used as the official language, which has nothing to do with the writing of the ancient empire. Berber and the Nubian language are also practiced in some areas. Coptic is used in the liturgies of Coptic Christians.
Alphanumeric system
The Egyptians also had their own number system and performed mathematical operations. Furthermore, the alphabet was an essential part of their language.
Los números
At Ancient Egypt numbers were represented, from one to millions. They were the first to develop the numbering system decimal, that is, it is based on the number 10.
They could be written both in numerical expression and in word, although only the words of number one and two were usually used. The name of the numbers from one to ten were as follows:
- Ua
- senu
- jemet
- Fed
- says
- Info
- Sefeju
- jemenu
- Pesedyu
- With
They were usually represented on papyrus or ostraca, so they used hieratic writing more than hieroglyphics. The Egyptians also had ordinal numbers and are considered the parents of advanced math.
To represent a sum, they used the hieroglyphic sign of the feet pointing in the direction of writing. To subtract, they drew these feet in the opposite direction.
On the other hand, to indicate a fraction, they drew the symbol of the mouth. To represent the fractions, they used the parts of the Eye of Horus symbol. For example, 1/4 was a circle, corresponding to the pupil of the eye. The following drawing shows which part belonged to each fraction:
The alphabeth
As we have explained previously, Egyptian writing was made up of ideograms, phonograms and determinatives. It is the phonograms, the representation of sounds, which make up a kind of Egyptian alphabet.
This alphabet has no vowels, it is made up of 24 consonants. Has great historical relevanceas it inspired later cultures. The Phoenicians were the first to use the alphabet as the sole basis for their writing.
The symbols to represent these consonants are varied. Animal forms, such as birds and reptiles, predominate. We also find numerous parts of the human body, such as the leg, arm, or hand.
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