CHAPTER VI.
The Interpretation of Hieroglyphics.
Hieroglyphs or hieroglyphics, literally “sacred sculptures,” is the term applied to those written characters by means of which the ancient Egyptians expressed their thoughts. Hieroglyphs are usually pictures of external objects, such as the sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, man, the members of man’s body, and various other objects.
They may be arranged in four classes.
First. Representational, iconographic, or mimic hieroglyphs, in which case each hieroglyph is a picture of the object referred to. Thus, the sun’s disk means the sun; a crescent the moon; a whip means a whip; an eye, an eye. Such hieroglyphs form picture-writing, and may be called iconographs, or representations.
Secondly. Symbolical, tropical, or ideographic hieroglyphs, in which case the hieroglyph was not designed to stand for the object represented, but for some quality or attribute suggested by the object. Thus, heaven and a star meant night; a leg in a trap, deceit; incense, adoration; a bee, Lower Egypt; the heart, love; an eye with a tear, grief; a beetle, immortality; a crook, protection. Such hieroglyphs are called ideographs, and are perhaps the most difficult to interpret, inasmuch as they stand for abstract ideas. Ideographic writing was carried to great perfection, the signs for ideas became fixed, and each ideograph had a stereotyped signification.
Thirdly. Enigmatic hieroglyphs include all those wherein one object stands for some other object. Thus, a hawk stands for a solar deity; the bird ibis, for the god Thoth; a seated figure with a curved beard, for a god.
Fourthly. Phonetic hieroglyphs, wherein each hieroglyph represents a sound, and is therefore called a phonetic. Each phonetic at first probably stood for a syllable, in which case it might be called a syllabic sign. Thus, a chessboard represents the sound men; a hoe, mer; a triple twig, mes; a bowl, neb; a beetle, khep; a bee, kheb; a star, seb.
It appears that when phonetic hieroglyphs were first formed, the spoken language was for the most part made up of monosyllabic words, and that the names given to animals were imitations of the sounds made by such animals; thus, ab means lamb; ba, goat; au, cow; mau, lion; su, goose; ui, a chicken; bak, a hawk; mu, an owl; khep, a beetle; kheb, a bee, etc.