ANCIENT EGYPT. 1 33 



example of this form in the museum series. The oldest 

 example of this form of writing extant, which may be said to 

 bear the same relationship to the older form, to some extent 

 at least, as our writing does to print, is the Prisse papyrus 

 (maxims of Ptah Hotep), written about b.c. 3,000, and there 

 are some inscriptions on the rocks at Assuan of about the 

 same time showing that hieratic was then used for common 

 purposes. The translation of this form of writing even now is 

 only determined through hieroglyphic forms. 



Demotic or enchorial writing came into vogue about b.c. 

 900. The translation before you is the demotic portion of the 

 inscription on the Rosetta stone. It was wanted for com- 

 mercial and general purposes, hieratic being too cumbersome 

 for daily life, and it represented a still further marked de- 

 cadence from hieroglyphic signs, in the direction of a flowing 

 hand, preserving but little of the original forms. It practically 

 survived in Coptic, into which language the Egyptian even- 

 tually became merged, and the derivation from the older 

 language is easily traceable. Coptic was used in translations 

 of the bible, but the Egyptian scribes were compelled by the 

 Ptolemaic government to employ the Greek alphabet to write 

 down the Egyptian words, and six demotic letters, forms of 

 "sh," "f," "x," "c," and " g" were added to supply sounds 

 which were absent in the Greek language, Coptic has a 

 grammar and lexicon, but none for any of the three older 

 forms has been discovered. Hieratic and demotic were in 

 use as late as the fourth century of our era. The key to the 

 hieroglyphics was not discovered until early in the 19th 

 century, and then greatly by the aid of the Rosetta stone, an 

 inscribed tablet found near the end of the previous century 

 by a French officer, and now in the British Museum. It is 

 a decree of the priests of Memphis conferring divine honours 

 on Ptolemy Epiphanes, b.c. 198. The Rosetta stone is of 

 black basalt, 3-ft. 2-in. long by 2-ft. 5-in. wide. A cast of the 

 inscription was taken by the Society of Antiquaries of London 

 in 1802, and impressions distributed among scholars. A piece 

 of the tablet with part of the inscription is broken off. Many 



