730 



HIEROGLYPHICS. 



mark, which they pronounced Adonai." Cham- 

 pollion openly asserts that the Egyptians wrote the 

 names of their principal deity, at least, in one way, 

 and pronounced it in another. As the Egyptians 

 were a civilized nation, it is clear that hieroglyphics 

 like those described (we mean the figurative and 

 symbolical) could by no means suffice to designate 

 (heir various wants, occupations, and ideas ; and 

 tin's want may be reasonably supposed to have 

 led to the invention of the third class of hierogly- 

 phics, which M. Champollion calls phonetic, i. e., 

 designating a sound. He has also discovered 

 the principle on which these signs were chosen 

 to express one certain sound; it is this, that the 

 hieroglyphic of any object might be used to re- 

 present the initial sound of the name of that object. 

 The following table shows this more clearly : the 

 first column gives the letter expressed by a hierogly- 

 phic ; the second, the English name of the object 

 represented ; and the third, the corresponding word 

 in the Coptic (i. e., Egyptian) language. 



Letter. Hieroglyphic- Egyptian Name. 

 A, an eagle, ahom. 



, a piece of meat, af or ab. 



A, O, a reed, aka or oke. 



B, a censer, berbe. 

 K, a knee, keli. 

 K, a basin, knikiji. 



G, , gnikiji. 



K, a cup, klaft. 



fh.} "* &. 



L, a lion, laboi. 



M , an owl, moulaj. 



, water, moou. 



N, inundation, neph. 



, vulture, noure. 



P ' \ mat fpre-sh. 



Ph, / nat ' tphreh. 



R, mouth, ro 



, tear, rime. 



, pomegranate, roman. 



S, star, sion. 



T, 

 SH, 



J,' 



Kh, 



child, 



hand, 



wing, 



garden, 



antelope, 



swallow, 



fan, 



fdonhi. 



tot. 



teo-h. 



shne. 



abash, 



jal. 



khai. 



This principle being admitted, it follows, that the 

 number of phonetic hieroglyphics might be increased 

 almost without limit, as the names of a great many 

 different objects might have the same initial sound. 

 The whole number of elementary sounds intended to 

 be represented was twenty-nine, which is certainly 

 very great for so early an alphabet a circumstance 

 which deserves still more attention, if we consider 

 that phonetic hieroglyphics were in use with the 

 Egyptians from time immemorial (see Spineto, page 

 95 et seq.) The great number of hieroglyphics, 

 which the principle above-mentioned would assign to 

 each of these sounds, would have been a continual 

 source of error. The characters, therefore, thus 

 applied, were soon reduced to a few ; and, as far as 

 has been hitherto ascertained, eighteen or nineteen is 

 the largest number assigned to any one letter, while 

 few have more than five or six representatives, and 

 several only one or two. The pronunciation of the 

 Egyptian language was, probably, rapid and indis- 

 tinct ; besides, several dialects were spoken in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country, and thus consonants were 

 easily interchanged, as we find to be the case at 

 present with so many languages. This was pro- 

 bably one of the reasons, or the only one, that the 

 vowels are so often left out in the hieroglyphics ; just 

 as is the case in Hebrew. The rule which may be 

 considered as having generally guided, in choosing 

 between so many signs for the same sound, was, to 

 take that sign which seemed most appropriate to the 



meaning of the word which was to be written phone 

 tically. If the name of a king was to be written, 

 those phonetic hieroglyphics would be taken, which 

 represented things of a noble character. The goose, 

 called ehenalopex, we find usually representing the 

 5 of Si, the word for son, on account, as Horapollo 

 says, of the attachment of this bird for its young. 

 If we had to write the word London in hieroglyphics, 

 and were to choose between the sign of the lamb and 

 of the lion, both of which might be used for an L, 

 we should certainly take the latter, on account of the 

 heraldic relation which this animal bears to England- 

 and, for the N, we might choose, among the many 

 figures capable of representing it, that of a fishing- 

 net or a navy, as reminding us of the sea, to which 

 London is so much indebted ; and so on. Thus the 

 eagle is frequently used for A, in the names of Roman 

 emperors, and the lion for L, in those of Ptolemy and 

 Alexander. With the Chinese hing-ching (q. v.), or 

 phonetic signs, a similar choice takes place. This is a 

 great addition in writing certain words, because it 

 assists in conveying a favourable or unfavourable 

 idea, and thereby adds to the force of the word itself. 

 What a scope for wit would such a choice of signs 

 afford, in the correspondence of modern fashionable 

 society ! 'Ihe Egyptians used a very great number 

 of abbreviations in writing phonetically, of which the 

 late doctor Young has shown many in the registries 

 of deeds, drawn up under the Ptolemies, and published 

 by him. Though, as we have stated, Champollion 

 considers the phonetic alphabet the true key to the 

 whole hieroglyphical system, all the sorts of the hie- 

 roglyphical characters are used together ; and, had 

 not so much already been done by the critical inge- 

 nuity of the learned, we should almost despair of 

 ever being able to read inscriptions, in which such 

 different signs are used promiscuously ; yet we are 

 informed that Champollion has acquired much skill 

 in deciphering these writings, so mysterious for thou- 

 sands of years, and reads most of them with compa- 

 rative ease. Those hieroglyphics, which are called 

 enigmatical, may be considered a division of the 

 symbolical. They are a more complicated and 

 obscure kind, probably formed by the anaglyphs or 

 allegorical sculptures, mentioned by Clement of 

 Alexandria. They appear to have been bass-reliefs 

 or tablets, containing mythological or historical sub- 

 jects, expressed in allegorical delineations, or implied 

 by the figures of human beings, with heads of birds 

 and beasts, such as those with which the Egyptian 

 temples were filled ; and among which we must rank 

 the sphinxes, forming avenues at their entrance. 

 Symbols such as these, grouped and combined accord- 

 ing to certain rules, might be so disposed as to form 

 an allegorical representation of the religious and 

 philosophical doctrines of the Egyptians. None but 

 the initiated were suffered to dive into these myste- 

 ries, and the key to them was kept exclusively in the 

 hands of the priesthood. As the ordinary style of 

 hieroglyphics must have been legible for every well 

 educated Egyptian, a more refined system was devised; 

 a language more strictly ideographical was invented; 

 metaphors, similes, imagery, and allegory were 

 imbodied in actual forms, and the links, connecting 

 the chain of ideas thus expressed, were implied, 

 either by the relative position of figures, their attri- 

 butes, or their ornaments, so as to present to the eye 

 of the initiated an intelligible, and, if such an ex- 

 pression may be allowed, a legible picture, in what 

 appeared to the uninitiated an incoherent tissue of 

 extravagance. " The images of the gods in the 

 sanctuaries, the human beings with heads of beasts, 

 or beasts with human limbs, might be termed," says 

 Champollion (Precis, 427), " the letters of that secret 

 writing, which consisted of the anaglyphs or enig- 



