HIEROGLYPHICS. 



729 



continue very bright. The general order in which 

 the characters are to be perused, is shown by the 

 direction in which they are placed, as their heads are 

 invariably turned towards the reader, or which is the 

 same thing, to that side of the tablet at which the in- 

 scription begins, whether it be right or left, for either 

 was admissible in the pure hieroglyphic, though not in 

 the demotic character. To this general rule, Cham- 

 pollion has met with only one exception in a hierogly- 

 phical MS. in the royal collection ; the figures, 

 therefore, form a sort of procession, and seem, from 

 their relative position, to be connected with each 

 other. The figurative, or, as they are called by the 

 English, the^wre hieroglyphics, i. e., the images of the 

 things signified, occur often either in an entire or an 

 abridged but intelligible form ; and some of that class 

 were often used merely to determine the sense of the 

 preceding figures, just as capital letters are employed 

 by us to distinguish proper names or words of peculiar 

 importance. This was the more necessary among 

 the Egyptians, as their names were all significant, and 

 liable to be taken as such, unless accompanied by 

 some indication of their peculiar use. The hierogly- 

 phic of man or woman, god or goddess, was conse- 

 quently subjoined, according to the sex of the person 

 or deity named. Thus ttie characters expressing 

 Amman mai, when alone, signify Beloved by Ammon; 

 but, when followed by that which stands for man, 

 represent a proper name, which the Greek \vould 

 probably have expressed by Philammon or Ammono- 

 philus : temple, image, statue, child, asp, and 

 monumental pillar were in like manner, expressed 

 by figures, evidently representing the things meant. 

 In the bass-reliefs at Medinet-tabu, the scribe record- 

 ing a victory, has a hand with ciphers, expressing 

 3000, placed in the hieroglyphic column over his 

 head, plainly indicating 3000 hands of men, slain or 

 conquered in battle. Above this is the figure of a 

 man, followed by 1000, evidently signifying 1000 

 prisoners taken. (Precis, pi. xix., fig. 1, 2.) The 

 figure or outline of a boat, followed by a line signi- 

 fying n (i. e., of], and the name of a god, signifies 

 the vessel of that god in which his image or shrine 

 was carried on solemn occasions. Sun, moon, star, 

 vessel, scales, bed, bull, loaf, sistrum, fish, goose, 

 tortoise, ox, cow, calf, haunch, antelope, bow, arrow, 

 dish, altar, censer, flower-pot, enclosure, chapel, shrine, 

 &c., are among the words expressed hieroglyphically, 

 by images of the objects themselves. These hiero- 

 glyphics, therefore, are called, by Champollion, 

 figurative proper. Other terms, such as sky or 

 firmament, and the names of the different gods, are 

 rendered by very obvious symbols, still in some degree 

 representing the object expressed, at least, according 

 to the notions and dogmas of the Egyptians ; the 

 former, by the section of a ceiling, with or without 

 stars subjoined ; the latter, by an outline of the 

 animals sacred to the deity to be represented. These 

 are termed figurative conventional. Sometimes only 

 part of the object to be represented is painted or 

 engraved, as the plan of a house, instead of a house 

 itself. These hieroglyphics are called figurative 

 abridged. Abstract ideas, however, could not well 

 be expressed by images of visible objects ; and meta- 

 phors, common in spoken language, when clothed 

 in a visible form, gave birth to a second class of 

 hieroglyphics that of images used in a symbolical 

 sense. These are the characters generally alluded 

 to by the ancients, when they speak of hieroglyphics; 

 and the circumstance that they are, from their 

 nature, more abstruse and difficult of interpretation, 

 was the occasion of the prevalent but mistaken no- 

 tion, that all the figures on the Egyptian monuments 

 are strictly symbolical an error which led the 

 learned world, foi so many centuries, to such extrava- 



gant and contradictory interpretations. Almost all 

 the figures of speech are, if we may so express it, 

 placed before the eye by this class of hieroglyphics. 

 " Two arms stretched up towards heaven" express- 

 ed the word offering ; " a censer with some grains of 

 incense," adoration ; " a man throwing arrows," 

 tumult. These instances, therefore, furnish examples 

 of synecdoches. Metonymies are exhibited in "a 

 crescent, with its horns bent down," for month 

 (Horapollo, II. , 12) ; in "a pencil and a palette," or 

 " a reed and an inkstand," tor writer, writing, letter, 

 c. The " bee,'' to signify an obedient people ; " fore- 

 quarters of a lion," for strength ; " a iiawk on the 

 wing," for the wind ; " an asp,'' for power of life and 

 death; are so many metaphors symbolically expressed. 

 As we are unacquainted with many of the ancient no- 

 tions, prejudices, &c., and therefore with many of their 

 associations of ideas, and with the transitions of mean- 

 ing which many signs must have undergone, this class 

 is the one which will always cause the greatest 

 trouble to the decipherer. An ancient Egyptian 

 writer, Horapollo (/, 20), tells us, that paternity and 

 the world were expressed by the figure of a " beetle;" 

 maternity by a " vulture." Who could have ascer- 

 tained the signification of these signs, if not assisted 

 by direct information of this kind ? The head of the 

 animal sacred to a deity, is often placed upon the 

 figure of a man, to signify the deity itself. This 

 certainly produced figures monstrous to us, but it is 

 founded on the notion, which has prevailed among 

 mankind from time immemorial that some particular 

 animal enjoyed the protection of some particular 

 god. Even at present, in many Christian countries, 

 certain animals are believed to be under the particular 

 protection of certain saints ; certain animals, too, are 

 used in paintings, as symbolical accompaniments of 

 apostles and saints.* Now the Egyptians, in writing 

 their hieroglyphics, put the head of this animal up- 

 on the statue, instead of putting it by the side of it, as 

 the owl is placed, by the Greeks, by the side of 

 Minerva ; thus the figure of a man, with the head of 

 a ram, signified Jupiter Ammon ; with the head of a 

 hawk, the god Plire ; with the head of a jackal, 

 Anubis, and so on. The gods were also represented, 

 by leaving outaltogether the figure, and exhibiting only 

 the sacred animal, with some of the divine attributes. 

 Thus a hawk, with a circle on its head, signifies Phre; 

 a ram, having its horns surmounted by a feather, or, 

 more generally by a circle, Cnuphis, &c. Lastly, 

 there is a kind of hieroglyphics for the Egyptian 

 gods, which we may call either symbolic or enigmati- 

 cal ; such as an eye for Osiris ; an obelisk for Jupiter 

 Ammon ; a nilometer, for the god Phtha. Spineto 

 (see lecture iv. of his valuable Lectures on the Ele- 

 ments of Hieroglyphics, &c., London, 1829) ascribes 

 these hieroglypliical representations of the deities to 

 the sacred dread which all Oriental nations, and even, 

 in some degree, the Greeks and Romans, had of 

 pronouncing the names of the gods. u And although 

 we find," he says, " these mystic names expressed 

 phonetically in the hieroglyphical legends, yet we 

 are to remember that the characters themselves were 

 considered as sacred, and peculiarly fitted to be 

 employed in religious matters. This is so true, that 

 in all documents written in the demotic or common 

 characters of the country, the names of the gods and 

 goddesses were invariably written symbolically ; just 

 as the Jews never wrote at full length the ineffable 

 name of Jehovah, but always expressed it by a short 



* An instance of a true hieroglyphic, among Christians, 

 is the sign for tbe Deity , a triangle (alluding to the Trinity), 

 with an eye in the middle (alluding to God's omniscience} 

 a hieroglyphic found in all Roman Catholic and Protestant 

 countries of tbe European continent ; for instance, on organs, 

 over the altar*. &c. 



