Decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts: Difference between revisions

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All three scripts contained a mix of [[phonogram (linguistics)|phonetic signs]], representing sounds in the spoken language, and [[ideographic]] signs, representing ideas. Phonetic signs included uniliteral, biliteral and triliteral signs, standing respectively for one, two or three sounds. Ideographic signs included [[logogram]]s, representing whole words, and [[determinative]]s, which were used to specify the meaning of a word written with phonetic signs.{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|pp=12–13}}

Many Greek and Roman authors wrote about these scripts, and many were aware that the Egyptians had two or three writing systems, but none whose works survived into later times fully understood how the scripts worked. [[Diodorus Siculus]], in the first century{{nbsp}}BC, explicitly described hieroglyphs as an ideographic script, and most classical authors shared this assumption. [[Plutarch]], in the first century AD, referred to 25 Egyptian letters, suggesting he might have been aware of the phonetic aspect of hieroglyphic or demotic, but his meaning is unclear.{{sfn|Pope|1999|pp=17–18}} Around AD{{nbsp}}200 [[Clement of Alexandria]] hinted that some signs were phonetic but concentrated on the signs' metaphorical meanings. [[Plotinus]], in the third century AD, claimed hieroglyphs did not represent words but a divinely inspired, fundamental insight into the nature of the objects they depicted.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=45–46}} In the following century [[Ammianus Marcellinus]] in the fourth century AD copied another author's translation of a hieroglyphic text on an [[obelisk]], but the translation was too loose to be useful in understanding the principles of the writing system.{{sfn|Pope|1999|p=19}} The only extensive discussion of hieroglyphs to survive into modern times was the ''[[Hieroglyphica]]'', a work probably written in the fourth century AD and attributed to a man named [[Horapollo]]. It discusses the meanings of individual hieroglyphs, though not how those signs were used to form phrases or sentences. Some of the meanings it describes are correct, but more are wrong, and all are misleadingly explained as allegories. For instance, Horapollo says an image of a goose means "son" because geese are said to love their children more than other animals. In fact the goose hieroglyph was used because the Egyptian words for "goose" and "son" incorporated the same consonants.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=47–49}}

Both hieroglyphic and demotic began to disappear in the third century AD.{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=26}} The temple-based priesthoods died out and [[Decline of ancient Egyptian religion|Egypt was gradually converted to Christianity]], and because [[Egyptian Christians]] wrote in the Greek-derived [[Coptic alphabet]], it came to supplant demotic. The [[Graffito of Esmet-Akhom|last hieroglyphic text]] was written by priests at the Temple of [[Isis]] at [[Philae]] in AD{{nbsp}}394, and the last demotic text was inscribed there in AD{{nbsp}}452.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=26, 30–31}}

Most of history before the first millennium{{nbsp}}BC was recorded in Egyptian scripts or in [[cuneiform]], the writing system of [[Mesopotamia]]. With the loss of knowledge of both these scripts, the only records of the distant past were in limited and distorted sources.{{sfn|Griffith|1951|pp=38–39}} The major Egyptian example of such a source was ''[[Manetho#Aegyptiaca|Aegyptiaca]]'', a history of the country written by an Egyptian priest named Manetho in the third century{{nbsp}}BC. The original text was lost, and it survived only in summaries and quotations by Roman authors.{{sfn|Thompson|2015a|pp=22–23}}

The [[Coptic language]], the last form of the Egyptian language, continued to be spoken by most Egyptians well after the [[Arab conquest of Egypt]] in AD{{nbsp}}642, but it gradually lost ground to [[Arabic language|Arabic]]. Coptic began to die out in the twelfth century, and thereafter it survived mainly as the [[liturgical language]] of the [[Coptic Church]].{{sfn|Hamilton|2006|pp=27–29, 195}}