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Hieratic

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Hieratic
Transcribed papyrus, c. 1500 BC
Script typewith consonants
Time period
c. 3200 BC – 3rd century AD
DirectionMixed
LanguagesEgyptian language
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
Demotic
possibly inspiredByblos syllabary
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Egyh(060),​Egyptian hieratic
Unicode
U+13000–U+1342F(unified withEgyptian hieroglyphs)
This article containsphonetic transcriptionsin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.For the distinction between[ ],/ /and ⟨⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Hieratic(/haɪəˈrætɪk/;Ancient Greek:ἱερατικά,romanized:hieratiká,lit. 'priestly') is the name given to acursivewriting system used forAncient Egyptianand the principal script used to write that language from its development in the third millennium BCE until the rise ofDemoticin the mid-first millennium BCE. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush onpapyrus.[1]

Etymology[edit]

In the second century, the termhieraticwas used for the first time by the Greek scholarClement of Alexandriato describe this Ancient Egyptian writing system.[2]The term derives from the Greek for "priestly writing" (Koinē Greek:γράμματα ἱερατικά) because at that time, for more than eight and a half centuries, hieratic had been used traditionally only for religious texts and literature.

Hieraticcan also be anadjectivemeaning "[o]f or associated with sacred persons or offices;sacerdotal."[3]

Development[edit]

Hieratic developed as a cursive form ofhieroglyphic scriptin theNaqada IIIperiod of Ancient Egypt, roughly 3200–3000 BCE.[4]Althoughhandwritten printed hieroglyphscontinued to be used in some formal situations, such as manuscripts of theEgyptian Book of the Dead,noncursive hieroglyphic script became largely restricted to monumental inscriptions.

Around 650 BCE, the even more-cursiveDemotic scriptdeveloped from hieratic.[1]Demotic arose in northern Egypt and replaced hieratic and the southern shorthand known as abnormal hieratic for most mundane writing, such as personal letters and mercantile documents. Hieratic continued to be used by thepriestlyclass for religious texts and literature into the third century AD.

Uses and materials[edit]

One of four official letters tovizierKhay copied onto fragments of limestone, anostracon

Through most of its long history, hieratic was used for writing administrative documents, accounts, legal texts, and letters, as well as mathematical, medical, literary, and religious texts. During the Græco-Roman period, when Demotic, and later,Greek,had become the chief administrative script, hieratic was limited primarily to religious texts. In general, hieratic was much more important than hieroglyphs throughout Egypt's history, being the script used in daily life. It was also the writing system first taught to students, knowledge of hieroglyphs being limited to a small minority who were given additional training.[5]It is often possible to detect errors in hieroglyphic texts that came about due to a misunderstanding of an original hieratic text.

Most often, hieratic script was written ininkwith areedbrushonpapyrus,wood,stone,orpotteryostraca.During the Roman period, reedpens(calami) were also used. Thousands of limestone ostraca have been found at the site ofDeir al-Madinah,revealing an intimate picture of the lives of common Egyptian workers. Besides papyrus, stone, ceramic shards, and wood, there are hieratic texts on leather rolls, although few have survived. There are also hieratic texts written on cloth, especially on linen used inmummification.There are some hieratic texts inscribed on stone, a variety known as lapidary hieratic. These are particularly common onstelaefrom thetwenty-second dynasty.

During the latesixth dynasty,hieratic was sometimes incised into mud tablets with astylus,similar tocuneiform.About five hundred of these tablets have been discovered in the governor's palace at Ayn Asil (Balat),[6]and a single example was discovered from the site of Ayn al-Gazzarin, both in theDakhla Oasis.[7][8][9]At the time the tablets were made, Dakhla was located far from centers ofpapyrusproduction.[10]These tablets record inventories, name lists, accounts, and approximately fifty letters. Of the letters, many are internal letters that were circulated within the palace and the local settlement, but others were sent from other villages in the oasis to the governor.

Characteristics[edit]

An exercise tablet with a hieratic excerpt fromThe Instructions of Amenemhat(dated to theeighteenth dynastyreign ofAmenhotep I,c. 1514–1493 BC) reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."

Hieratic script, unlike inscriptional andmanuscript hieroglyphs,reads from right to left. Initially, hieratic could be written in either columns or horizontal lines, but after thetwelfth dynasty(specifically during the reign ofAmenemhat III), horizontal writing became the standard.

Hieratic is noted for its cursive nature and use ofligaturesfor a number of characters. Hieratic script also uses a much more standardizedorthographythan hieroglyphs; texts written in the latter often had to take into account extra-textual concerns, such as decorative uses and religious concerns that were not present in, say, a tax receipt. There are also some signs that are unique to hieratic, althoughEgyptologistshave invented equivalent hieroglyphic forms for hieroglyphic transcriptions and typesetting.[11]Several hieratic characters have diacritical additions so that similar signs could easily be distinguished.

Hieratic is often present in any given period in two forms, a highly ligatured, cursive script used for administrative documents, and a broaduncialbookhandused for literary, scientific, and religious texts. These two forms can often be significantly different from one another. Letters, in particular, used very cursive forms for quick writing, often with large numbers of abbreviations for formulaic phrases, similar toshorthand.

A highly cursive form of hieratic known as "Abnormal Hieratic" was used in theThebanarea from the second half of thetwentieth dynastyuntil the beginning of thetwenty-sixth dynasty.[12][13]It derives from the script of Upper Egyptian administrative documents and was used primarily for legal texts, land leases, letters, and other texts. This type of writing was superseded by Demotic—a Lower Egyptian scribal tradition—during the twenty-sixth dynasty, when Demotic was established as a standard administrative script throughout a re-unified Egypt.

Influence[edit]

Hieratic has had influence on a number of other writing systems. The most obvious is that onDemotic,its direct descendant. Related to this are the Demotic signs of theMeroitic scriptand the borrowed Demotic characters used in theCoptic alphabetandOld Nubian.

Outside of the Nile Valley, many of the signs used in theByblos syllabaryapparently were borrowed fromOld Kingdomhieratic signs.[14]It is also known that earlyHebrewusedhieratic numerals.[15][16]

Unicode[edit]

The Unicode standard considers hieratic characters to be font variants of theEgyptian hieroglyphs,and the two scripts have been unified.[17]Hieroglyphs were added to theUnicodeStandard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abMcGregor 2015,p. 306.
  2. ^Goedicke (1988,p. vii);Wente (2001,p. 2006). The reference is made in Clement'sStromata5:4.
  3. ^Definition of hieratic,Free Online Dictionary. Retrieved 2011-10-23.
  4. ^Friedhelm Hoffmann (2012),Hieratic And Demotic Literature,OUP.
  5. ^Baines 1983,p. 583.
  6. ^Soukiassian, Wuttmann & Pantalacci 2002.
  7. ^Posener-Kriéger 1992.
  8. ^Pantalacci 1998.
  9. ^Scribes and craftsmen: the noble art of writing on clay.Archived2016-05-29 at theWayback MachineFeb 29, 2012; UCL Institute of Archaeology
  10. ^Parkinson & Quirke 1995,p. 20.
  11. ^Gardiner 1929.
  12. ^Wente 2001,p. 210.
  13. ^Malinine 1974.
  14. ^Hoch 1990.
  15. ^Aharoni 1966.
  16. ^Goldwasser 1991.
  17. ^TheUnicodeStandard, Version 5.2.0, Chapter 14.17,Egyptian Hieroglyphs[1]

Bibliography[edit]

  • Aharoni, Yohanan (1966). "The Use of Hieratic Numerals in Hebrew Ostraca and the Shekel Weights".Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.184(184): 13–19.doi:10.2307/1356200.JSTOR1356200.S2CID163341078.
  • Baines, John R.(1983)."Literacy and Ancient Egyptian Society".Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science.18 (new series): 572–599. Archived fromthe originalon 2006-10-09.
  • Betrò, Maria Carmela (1996).Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt.New York; Milan: Abbeville Press (English); Arnoldo Mondadori (Italian). pp.34–239.ISBN978-0-7892-0232-1.
  • Fischer-Elfert, Hans-Werner(2021).Grundzüge einer Geschichte des Hieratischen.Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie. Vol. 14. Berlin: Lit.
  • Gardiner, Alan H.(1929). "The Transcription of New Kingdom Hieratic".Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.15(1/2): 48–55.doi:10.2307/3854012.JSTOR3854012.
  • Goedicke, Hans (1988).Old Hieratic Paleography.Baltimore: Halgo, Inc.
  • Goldwasser, Orly (1991). "An Egyptian Scribe from Lachish and the Hieratic Tradition of the Hebrew Kingdoms".Tel Aviv: Journal of the Tel Aviv University Institute of Archaeology.18:248–253.
  • Hoch, James E. (1990). "The Byblos Syllabary: Bridging the Gap Between Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Semitic Alphabets".Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.20:115–124.
  • Janssen, Jacobus Johannes (2000). "Idiosyncrasies in Late Ramesside Hieratic Writing".Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.86:51–56.doi:10.2307/3822306.JSTOR3822306.
  • Malinine, Michel (1974). "Choix de textes juridiques en hiératique 'anormal' et en démotique".Textes et langages de l'Égypte pharaonique: Cent cinquante années de recherches 1822–1972; Hommage à Jean-François Champollion.Vol. 1. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire. pp. 31–35.
  • McGregor, William B.(2015).Linguistics: An Introduction.Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 306.ISBN978-0-567-48339-3.
  • Möller, Georg Christian Julius (1927–1936).Hieratische Paläographie: Die aegyptische Buchschrift in ihrer Entwicklung von der Fünften Dynastie bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit(2nd ed.). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’schen Buchhandlungen.4 vols.
  • Möller, Georg Christian Julius (1927–1935).Hieratische Lesestücke für den akademischen Gebrauch(2nd ed.). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’schen Buchhandlungen.3 vols.
  • Pantalacci, Laure (1998). "La documentation épistolaire du palais des gouverneurs à Balat–ˤAyn Asīl".Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale.98:303–315.
  • Parkinson, Richard B.; Quirke, Stephen G. J. (1995).Papyrus.London: British Museum Press.
  • Posener-Kriéger, Paule (1992). "Les tablettes en terre crue de Balat". In Élisabeth Lalou (ed.).Les Tablettes à écrire de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne.Turnhout: Brepols. pp. 41–49.
  • Soukiassian, Georges; Wuttmann, Michel; Pantalacci, Laure (2002).Le palais des gouverneurs de l'époque de Pépy II: Les sanctuaires de ka et leurs dépendances.Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire.ISBN978-2-7247-0313-9.
  • Verhoeven, Ursula (2001).Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift.Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oriëntalistiek.
  • Wente, Edward Frank (2001). "Scripts: Hieratic". InDonald Redford(ed.).The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt.Vol. 3. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. pp. 206–210.
  • Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (1989).Hieratische Paläographie der nicht-literarischen Ostraka der 19. und 20. Dynastie.Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

External links[edit]

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