Sacred in themselves by their very form, that of the revered insect god, they are rendered still more sacred by their mystic inscriptions, which consist of appropriate religious phrases in hieroglyphic writing.
Before any advance can be made in the deciphering of the hieroglyphic inscriptions, it is necessary to know in what directions, along what lines or columns, the verbal sense proceeds.
Illustration: This is an inscription inhieroglyphic writing found at Meidum, Egypt.
Accounts of their conquests, under great dynasties of kings, have come down to us in hieroglyphic inscriptions.
There were shops for the sale of blank books, or rolls, for the hieroglyphic picture writing.
Here are the best schools of the scribes, and they come here to be instructed in hieroglyphic writing from all parts of the kingdom.
The hieroglyphic text consists of 14 lines only, and these correspond to the last 28 lines of the Greek text.
Thus there was good reason to believe that the cartouche on the Rosetta Stone contained the name of Ptolemy written in hieroglyphic characters.
The original form of the Decree is given by the Demotic section, and the Hieroglyphic and Greek versions were made from it.
A large portion of the missing lines of the hieroglyphic text can be restored from a stele discovered in 1898 at Damanhûr in the Delta (Hermopolis Parva), and now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (No.
When these cartouches were compared with the cartouche on the Rosetta Stone it was found that one of them contained hieroglyphic characters that were almost identical with those which filled the cartouche on the Rosetta Stone.
Phoenician and the Greek, it may without hesitation be asserted, that they were derived from hieroglyphics, and are, without exception, of hieroglyphic origin.
From this it appears that the hieroglyphic system of Egypt, although entirely symbolical, contains, notwithstanding, the germ of alphabetical writing.
In the Hittite system of hieroglyphic writing, the boot with upturned end occupies a prominent place.
The hieroglyphic system of writing was already complete, and fragments of obsidian vases turned on the lathe indicate commercial relations with the Ægean Sea.
Already in the time of Menes the hieroglyphic system of writing was fully developed, and before the end of the Third dynasty a "hieratic" or running hand had been formed out of it.
The mode of representing this element in Egyptian painting is further abbreviated in their hieroglyphic writing, where the sign of water is a zigzag line; this line is, so to speak, a picture of water written in short hand.
We possess in our museums abundant specimens of the works of these three groups, as also of their singular hieroglyphic writings, resembling the first attempts of the Chinese and Egyptians to represent ideas in forms.
The anchor, then, signifies a stay and security, whilst the dolphin is a hieroglyphic for philanthropy and safety.
This combination looks like a hieroglyphic rendering of the phrase, "under the rose," but the key is of very common occurrence in other signs, as will be seen presently.
The whole figure is cut in deep relief in an artificial niche, and between the spear and the face are three lines of hieroglyphic characters.
It cannot be long before the inscriptions left to us by the Hittites, in their peculiar form of hieroglyphic writing, are also made to reveal their secrets.
The influence of Egypt was but transitory, but it was to it, in all probability, that the Hittites owed the idea of hieroglyphic writing.
It was subsequently to this that the Hittites forced their way southward, bringing with them their own peculiar system of hieroglyphic writing.
The rude mountaineers of the Taurus had descended into the fertile plains of the south, interrupting the intercourse between Babylonia and Canaan, and superseding the cuneiform characters of Chaldaea by their own hieroglyphic writing.
What hieroglyphic words, what [riddles] all, In letters more than cabalistical!
If my affection thou wouldst win, First cast thy hieroglyphic skin.
Under his fore feet is the hieroglyphic symbol of running water.
Father never could spell, and when he is in difficulties he makes a hieroglyphic with his pen, and leaves me to decipher it.
I am afraid the critics find it hieroglyphic too," said Vickars, with a return to his dejected manner.
Arouna or Aruna, which he without hesitation identified with Ilium, as he thought that this was the only way in which the latter word could be rendered in the hieroglyphic language.
If, on the contrary, the round sign reminded the people of an eye, then the sign of the sun would soon become the eye of heaven, and germs of mythology would spring up even from the barren soil of such hieroglyphic language.
Being numbered ten, its Hebrew letter is Yod, the hieroglyphic meaning of which is "the forefinger extended as a sign of command.
The meanings are manifold, for the letter Tzaddi (although its hieroglyphic idea is similar to that of Teth on the ninth card) has different significances, according to its position in a word.
But Egyptian native learning was decaying, and the knowledge of hieroglyphicwriting was dying out.
The hieroglyphic figure of Venus rising from the sea supported on a shell by two tritons, as well as that of Hercules armed with a club, appear to be remains of the most remote antiquity.
Lastly, the histories of illustrious persons of the early ages seem to have been enacted; who were first represented by hieroglyphic figures, and afterwards became the gods and goddesses of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.
Other hieroglyphic figures seem to have been designed to perpetuate the events of history, the discoveries in other arts, and the opinions of those ancient philosophers on other subjects.
It seems probable that Proteus was the name of a hieroglyphic figure representing Time; whose form was perpetually changing, and who could discover the past events of the world, and predict the future.
The story of the Phoenix rising from its own ashes with a star upon its head seems to have been an hieroglyphic emblem of the destruction and resuscitation of all things; see Botan.
But the hieroglyphic figure of Adonis seems to have signified the spirit of animation or life, which was perpetually wooed or courted by organic matter, and which perished and revived alternately.
They seem to have consisted of scenical representations of the philosophy and religion of those times, which had previously been painted in hieroglyphic figures to perpetuate them before the discovery of letters; and are well explained in Dr.
On the summit he was received by six priests, whose long and matted locks flowed in disorder over their sable robes, covered with hieroglyphic scrolls of mystic import.
A third form ofhieroglyphic was by devising some conventional mark or symbol to suggest the initial sound of the name to be recorded.
