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Hieroglyphs are a system of writing used by the Ancient Egyptians, using a combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements.

1 Etymology

The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek words ἱερογλύφος (hieroglúphos) hiero- (ἱερός), meaning "sacred", and glyph (γλύφειν), meaning "carving". The traditional Egyptian name for hieroglyphics is transliterated as medu netjer, meaning 'words of (the) god'.

2 History and the Evolution of hieroglyphics

For many years, the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette, found during excavations at Hierconopolis in the 1890s, which has been dated to c. 3000 BC. However, in 1987 a German archeological team excavating at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab ) uncovered tomb U-j which belonged to a Predynastic ruler, and recovered several hundred bone labels inscribed with fully-formed hieroglyphics. This grave has been dated to c. 3150 BC.

Hieroglyphics consisted of three kinds of characters: phonetic characters, including single-sound characters, like an alphabet, but also many representing one or more syllables, ideographs, representing a word, and determinatives, which indicate the semantic category of a spelled-out word without indicating its precise meaning. Champollion had this to say about the system:

As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified letter forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demoticDemotic is the ancient Egyptian script preceded by hieratic. After the introduction of demotic, hieratic remained in use for religious purposes, while demotic was used for economic and literary purposes. In contrast to hieratic, demotic was often carved i (popular) scripts. These forms were also more suited to use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed along side the other forms. The Rosetta StoneThe Rosetta Stone is a dark granite stone (often incorrectly identified as " basalt") which provided modern researchers with translations of ancient text in Egyptian demotic script, Greek, and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Because Greek was well known, the ston contains both hieroglyphic and demotic writing.

Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), after Alexanderbust of Alexander the Great Alexander III (late July, 356 BC June 10, 323 BC), King of Macedon ( 336 BC-323 BC), known as Alexander the Great was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world. Following the unification of the multipl's conquest of Egypt, and during the ensuing Macedonian and RomanRoman or Romans has several meanings, primarily related to the Roman citizens but also applicable to typography math and a commune''. Roman The noun Roman means a citizen of Rome. The adjective Roman means pertaining or related to Rome. The name Romans in periods. It appears that the complexity of late hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some belief that hieroglyphs functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from the foreign conquerors (and their local lackeys). This aspect may account for misleading quality of surviving comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs. Another factor is the pervasive attitude of "respect," coupled with a refusal to tackle a foreign culture on their own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge. This respect engendered not interest, but ignorance.

By the fourth century AD, few Egyptians remained capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the "myth" of hieroglyphs was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in 391Events All non- Christian temples in the Roman Empire are closed Quintus Aurelius Symmachus is urban prefect in Rome, and petitions Theodosius I to re-open the pagan temples. He is opposed by Ambrose King Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo ascends to the thAD by the Roman Emperor Theodosius IFlavius Theodosius (Cauca [Coca-Segovia], Spain ca 346 Milan, January 17, 395), also called Theodosius I and Theodosius the Great was a Roman emperor. He was the son of a senior military officer, Theodosius the Elder. Theodosius was, briefly, the last rul; the last known inscription is from a temple far to the south not too long after 391Events All non- Christian temples in the Roman Empire are closed Quintus Aurelius Symmachus is urban prefect in Rome, and petitions Theodosius I to re-open the pagan temples. He is opposed by Ambrose King Gwanggaeto the Great of Goguryeo ascends to the th.

Also in the fourth century appeared the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo , an "explanation" of nearly 200 signs. Authoritative yet largely false, the work was a lasting impediment to the decipherment of Egyptian writing. But whereas earlier scholarship emphasized its Greek origin, more recent work has emphasized remnants of genuine knowledge, and cast it as a "desperate" attempt by an Egyptian intellectual to rescue an unrecoverable past. The Hieroglyphica was a major influence on RenaissanceLeonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, an example of the blend of art and science during the Renaissance The Renaissance was a great cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern Eur symbolism, particularly the emblem book of Andrea Alciato, and including the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna.

Various modern scholars attempted to decipher the glyphs over the centuries, notably Athanasius Kircher in the 17th century, but such attempts either met with failure or were fictitious decipherments based on nothing but imaginative free-association. The most significant work on deciphering the hieroglyphs was done by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion beginning the very early 1800s. The discovery of the Rosetta stone by some of Napoleon's troops during the Egyptian invasion provided the critical information which allowed Champollion to make a nearly complete break into hieroglyphs by the 1830s. It was a major triumph for the young discipline of Egyptology.