Egypt
Late Period, mid -1st millennium BCE
Limestone
14.8 x 13.1 x 2.5 cm HWD

Hieroglyphics – a form of writing employing pictures, but not a picture writing – were used from 3000 BCE until the 4th century CE and then forgotten. In was only in 1822 that the brilliant French scholar J.F. Champollion (1790 – 1832) succeeded in deciphering them. The key to the de­ciphering was the famed Rosetta Stone, which was discovered in 1799 during Napoleon’s military and scientific expedition to Egypt (1798 – 1801). It is a decree written in the “three languages”, Hieroglyphics, Demotic and Greek. Champollion recognised that hieroglyphs utilised a mixed system of phonetics and pictorial signs and that most of the signs were to be read phonetically. It is now possible to translate ancient Egyptian texts with increasing accuracy, but it is still not possible to pronounce the words correctly because the Egyptians only wrote out the consonants and not the vowels.

The fragment of an inscription with sunken hieroglyphs – in which remnants of blue and red paint can still be found – probably originated from a funerary inscription. Reading from the top to the bottom, the not further identifiable sign for the phonetic value “m”, the bolt for the phonetic value “s” and the ligation (i.e. the connection of two signs) of vulture and sickle with the reading “ma” have been preserved. The reverse of the fragment reveals traces of the original chisel work.

Writing was always a component of art and especially during the early phase of writing, images and words were inseparably tied to each other. Unlike our alphabet, the hieroglyphic system of writing was never completed. Although a sign could be given a definition that remained unchanged over millennia, new hieroglyphs could be invented and integrated at any time.

André Wiese, 2011

Literature
A. Wiese, Die Hieroglyphe Mensch, Zeitschrift für Semiotik, 16 (3 – 4), 1994, 297 – 317. Stiftung DKM, Ägypten _ Egypt, Duisburg, 2011, 70 – 71, cat no. 33, Abb. 71.