EARLIEST WRITTEN SOUNDS.
The hieroglyphic is the most ancient form of written sounds. The earliest known monuments containing phonetic hieroglyphics date about forty centuries ago, or six hundred years before the time of Moses, who is supposed to have been versed in the knowledge of the hieroglyphs. Yet nothing worthy of the name of an alphabet existed till a later period, when the Phœnicians invented a purely alphabetic system, but suppressing the vowels, and from this has originated all the modes of alphabetic writing now used.[12] The Greeks introduced the vowels into their graphic system, and so brought to perfection the invaluable invention of alphabetic writing.
The discovery of the Rosetta stone furnished a clue to the method of deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics; and Dr. Young and Champollion were the first to make use of the suggestive opportunity. The words Ptolemy and Cleopatra were made out; and these served as a key or incentive to further investigations; and extensive and curious volumes have been devoted to the interpretation of Egypt’s mysterious inscriptions on monuments and writings on papyrus.
Among those who have investigated the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mr. R. Lepsius is one of the most practical, for he has reduced the ancient characters to typographical uses for the behoof of the delvers into the earth’s earliest lore. He began the work soon after his return from a scientific expedition to Egypt during the years 1842-46, and his hieroglyphic types now completed number more than thirteen hundred. The Prussian government furnishing the needful pecuniary means, his first task was to ascertain the forms of hieroglyphic signs which would be most suitable for typographical purposes, and here the labour was immense. After laborious research, he reached the conclusion, that as European print had been formed, not from the monumental characters of the Greeks and Romans, but essentially from the current handwriting of documents on parchment and paper, so the hieroglyphic type should follow, not the chiseled or painted characters on the monuments, but the style of those written on papyrus. The style and proportions having been established, the punch-cutting was mostly executed by Mr. Ferdinand Theinhardt, the excellent Prussian type-founder, who for a series of years has been skilfully engaged in producing the matrices. We are indebted to Mr. Theinhardt for the specimens here given; the first of which is the hieroglyphic alphabet, and the second is the beginning of an ancient text found in a leather roll of the Royal Museum of Berlin, referring to the foundation of the temple of the Sun at On or Heliopolis in Egypt.
HIEROGLYPHIC ALPHABET.
1 Renpt III ȧbeṭ III šat . . . xer ḥen n suten xet xeper-qu-rā sa-rā usertesen maā-xeru ānx tétta r neḥ:
2 suten xāt m sexti, xeper ḥemes m tȧṭet, netńu re n ȧmu-xetef, semer nu
3 . . . ānx utȧ senb, seru r ȧst senentu, utu téṭet xeft setem set netńu re m
4 seun ḥer-sen. Mā-ten ḥen-a ḥer šau qat, sexa m sep m xut;
5 n-mxet ȧrí-ȧ mennu, semen-ȧ utu reṭu n ḥer xuti.
TRANSLATION.
Done in the month of Hatoor of the third year of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Kheperkara Usertesen I.—the blessed and eternally living.
The King, wearing the double crown, sat in the royal hall. There was held a council of his attendants, the counsellors of the apartments of the Pharao (may he live!) and the great (chiefs) for the site of the foundation. Speeches were made, while they listened; and they deliberated, stepping forward. “Well!” said the King, “let me order the work and fittingly commemorate deeds of glory. Henceforth I will erect buildings and lasting steles to the double Horus,” that is to the god of the rising and setting Sun, etc.