HIEROGLYPHICS. 



731 



matical sculptures, forming the fourth class of hiero- 

 glyphics." " It was in this sense, probably," he ' 

 adds, " that the Egyptian priests called the ibis, the 

 hawk and the jackal, the images of which were 

 carried in procession on certain solemn occasions, 

 letters (yos.pp.Ta, Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride), as 

 being the true elements of a sort of allegorical mode 

 of writing." It is in the interior of tneir temples 

 and their sepulchres, that these symbolical records 

 are found " distinguishable without difficulty," says 

 the same writer, " from the historical scenes and 

 civil or religious ceremonies, represented in the 

 liass-reliefs and paintings on the walls of their 

 public buildings." The origin and characteristics 

 of the hieratic or sacred character, so denominated 

 to distinguish it from the demotic, or popular, have 

 already been briefly stated. It consists of nothing 

 more than imperfect and dashing sketches of the 

 hieroglyphics, which thus assumed the form of a 

 flowing and rapid hand. For figures and symbols, 

 it often substitutes phonetic groups or arbitrary 

 characters, which bear no resemblance to the hiero- 

 glyphics for which they stand. Religion and science, 

 both fostered by the priest, seem to be the only sub- 

 jects for which this character was used ; nor did it 

 undergo any material change in its form and struc- 

 ture, during the many ages through which it was 

 used, resembling, in this respect, the use of a court 

 hand, as it was called for centuries, in copying 

 records and other legal proceedings in England and 

 the continent of Europe, and the long continuance 

 of a particular phraseology in legal instruments. 

 The real hieratic character resembles the Chinese, 

 and is written with as much rapidity. One peculi- 

 arity of this character deserves notice here. In 

 hieratic text, the oval frame enclosing the name of 

 kings, called cartouche (q. v.), is expressed by a 

 semicircle at the beginning of the word, as might be 

 expected ; but at the end, instead of a corresponding 

 curve, followed by a straight line, expressive of the 

 remainder of the frame, as is usually the case in the 

 demotic character, three, four, or five dashes, either 

 straight or slightly curved, are substituted for it. 

 The common Egyptian character, called demotic 

 from its popular use, epistolographic from its fitness 

 for letter-writing, and enchorial from its being pecu- 

 liar to Egypt, and distinct from the Greek, so fami- 

 liarly known there under the Ptolemies, seems to 

 have been derived from the hieratic by nearly the 

 same process as the latter from the hieroglyphics. 

 It is, however, more simple ; not strictly alphabetic, 

 because a small number of images or figures are still 

 found in it; some few symbols, also, connected with 

 religious subjects, occur ; but these figures and sym- 

 bols are almost invariably so curtailed and simplified, 

 as to lose all resemblance to the objects expressed. 

 The whole, therefore, has the appearance of a writ- 

 ten alphabet. The number of equivalent signs is 

 much smaller, the whole of those which clearly dif- 

 fer from each other not exceeding forty-two. In 

 the direction of the lines from right to left, and in 

 the suppression of many vowels, this system of writ- 

 ing resembles that of the Phoenicians and Hebrews. 



Numeration by Hieroglyphics. The units are 

 expressed by single upright strokes, and they are 

 always repeated to mark any number below 10. 

 The number 10 is represented by an arch, either 

 round or angular. The repetition of these arches 

 produces the repetition of as many tens up to 90. 

 A hundred is exhibited by a figure very much resem- 

 bling our 9. This same figure is again repeated for 

 every 100, for any number below 1000. One thou- 

 sand is represented by a cross, over which is a figure 

 like 3. Thus, to express the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, &c. 

 we are to mark 2, 3, 4, or 7 upright strokes. To 



ignify 20 or 90, we are to write 2 or 9 angular 

 r round arches : the number 42, for instance, is 

 expressed by 4 arches, which mean 4 times 10= 4O, 

 and by 2 upright strokes, which mean 2. To sig- 

 nify the ordinal numbers, we are to place at the top 

 f each of the numbers a figure, which resembles 

 ur 8 placed horizontally ( oo ) ; thus a single upright 

 mark, with the horizontal oo over it, would signify 

 first; and, if this figure be changed into one like the 

 ,hree sides of a square, then the numbers will signify 

 he first time, &c. (Spineto, lect. ii., p. 72). This 

 system, though much inferior to that admirable 

 nvention, by which the place of the number indi- 

 cates what product of 10, or 100, or 1000, &c., it is, is 

 yet greatly superior to the Greek and Roman nume- 

 ration. 



Upon what basis does all this theory rest ? The 

 answer to this question is the account of one of the 

 most ingenious discoveries in the history of mankind ; 

 and, if the invention of the fluxions, by Newton, and 

 the infinitesimal calculus, by Leibnitz, is designated 

 as the most brilliant proof of the calculating and 

 abstractive power of the human intellect, the deci- 

 phering of hieroglyphics, which, for thousands of 

 pears, lay before us sealed up, may well be called 

 jie masterpiece of criticism. VVe shall here give a 

 brief outline of the history of this discovery, which 

 has become still more interesting of late, by the dis- 

 pute for priority between the French, who claim it 

 for their countryman Champollion, and the English, 

 who claim it for the late doctor Young, though 

 impartial readers will probably decide for the for- 

 mer, without any derogation from the great merits 

 of doctor Young. It has been erroneously asserted, 

 that the hieroglyphic writing was a mystery known 

 only to the Egyptian priests, and carefully concealed 

 by them from the world. This opinion is directly 

 contradicted by a remarkable passage of Clement of 

 Alexandria (Stromata, v. 657), who expressly states, 

 " that the educated Egyptians learn, first, the Egyp- 

 tian manner of writing called epistolographic (encho- 

 rial or demotic), then the hieratic, and, finally, the 

 hieroglyphic." But, at a later period, after the intro- 

 duction of Christianity, when the Grecian alphabet 

 was adopted in Egypt, the old modes of writing 

 were neglected, and even the knowledge of them 

 became finally lost. If we derive no information 

 from the Greek and Roman authors on this subject, 

 it may be accounted for on the ground, that they 

 considered it too well known to require explanation ; 

 and in fact the passage of Clement of~Alexandria, 

 above referred to, is so general as to have been 

 entirely unintelligible, before the discoveries of 

 modern scholars had explained it. At the epoch, 

 then, of the revival of learning, nothing was known 

 of the nature of hieroglyphics. The Jesuit Kircher 

 involved the subject in a learned smoke in the 

 seventeenth century. Warburton (Divine Legation 

 of Moses) discussed the ancient texts, and made 

 some approach to the discovery of alphabetic cha- 

 racters ; but it was reserved for the nineteenth cen- 

 tury to solve this great enigma. The learned Zoega, 

 a Dane, in his celebrated work De Obeliscis, which 

 appeared in 1800 (dated 1797), threw a strong light 

 on Egyptian antiquities and history. Quatremere, a 

 Frenchman, demonstrated the identity of the Coptic 

 and the Egyptian language in his Recherches sur la 

 Langue et la Litterature de VEgypte (1808) a 

 most important and indispensable siep in the pro- 

 gress ot discovery. But the monument which 

 led directly to the knowledge of the Egyptian 

 manner of writing, was the Rosetta stone, a muti- 

 lated block of basalt dug up at Rachid (Rosetta) 

 in Egypt, by the French troops, when building 

 the fort St Julien. This stone contained an in 



