Late Egyptian Letters

Translate to French
German
Translate to German
Italian
Translate to Italian
Translate to Portuguese
Spanish
Translate to Spanish
HP3a: Late Egyptian Letters Gardiner Signs A1-D60
by Sheldon Gosline
Contents _______________________________________ iii...Contents iv....Introductory Remarks v.....Study of "The Seated Man" Gardiner A1 xiv...Stroke Sequence Manual Notes 1.....1: Brush Strokes 1 & 2 - vertical 27....2: Brush Strokes 3 & 4 - horizontal 48....3: Brush Strokes 5 & 7 - backslash 57....4: Brush Strokes 6 & 8 - forwardslash 84....5: Brush Strokes 9 & Y - backcurve 89....6: Brush Strokes X & Z - forwardcurve 121...Complex Signs Enlarged 156...Gardiner Sign List 207...Number List 209...Gardiner Index	ORDER NOW Unlocking the secrets of an ancient language system is like cracking a code. This is archaeo-cryptography! ISBN 0-9714683-0-3 Cloth Bound Price $39.50 US Single Orders Volume Orders Excerpt Below
The Author Prof. Sheldon Lee Gosline is the founding director of the Hieratic Font Project of the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations.
EXCERPTS

Study of "The Seated Man Sign" (Gardiner A1) in Late Egyptian Hieratic

(paper originally for address at MMA, 4 Nov. 2000, subsequently modified)


ABSTRACT

Hieratic studies have long been the provenance of an elite segment of the Egyptology community of scholars.  This paper suggests an alternative approach to the subject and maps out a possible way in which hieratic may enter the mainstream of scientific investigation, as illustrated by one of the most common sign, the seated man, as found in Late Egyptian.

Thesis

The systematic analysis of hieratic is still very much in its infancy.  Only now are we beginning to develop research tools and theoretical structures for the task ahead.  This task is not always clear, nor is it strictly mapped out by the dictates and constraints of preceding, or existing lines of Egyptological research.  

Firstly, what the subject of the study is needs definition.  For well over a century, the subject of �hieratic� has been shrouded in the mysteries of the upper echelons of academic Egyptology.   That �hieratic� was the basic and most common form of handwriting for Egyptian scribes and that hieroglyphics were mastered by fewer scribes, mostly involved in preparing monumental inscriptions, is rarely acknowledged.  Current academic models for teaching Egyptian language are completely out of step with the way Egyptians learned what was their own written language.  One might wonder why most modern Egyptologists cannot master hieratic, when it was the very basis of Egyptian scribal education.   Clearly, we need a shift in our focus concerning the nature of writing and calligraphy in ancient Egypt to what the ancients perceived, if we have any hopes of understanding them in any greater detail.

Secondly, how we view our research needs to be addressed.  The research perspective must be clear.  It is an obvious point, but Egyptian scribes did not write with ball-point pens.  Nor did they, for that matter, type out their correspondences on lap top computers!  Contemporary literacy may be carrying on an ancient literate tradition, but we are far removed from the process of ancient writing.  Increasingly, how we write is becoming further removed from the very practice of handwriting itself.  I recently attended a teachers conference where I sat next to a fourth grade teacher, fresh out of teachers college, with all the answers to the educational woes of the American system.  When I raised the problem of teenagers with illegible handwriting, my learned associate in the educational system waved her hand at me.  �Oh! We never teach penmanship anymore.  Nobody needs to know how to write now.�  When I picked my jaw up, I realized that she was the problem personified, or perhaps I had become a relic in a museum.  Recently going through the attic, I discovered my own handwriting from fourth grade, which my mother had hidden away quite a while ago.  Indeed, its precision and exactness to the Palmer Method presented a surprising contrast to the awkward scribbles of most present day students, or even my own contemporary degenerated script.  So, perhaps these relics of penmanship should be framed and housed in a museum.

Grade school students in America are no longer taught how to write in cursive, let alone, for that matter, on papyri or ostraca.  Rather we regularly use electronic text processing programs and E-MAIL for quick, globally linked information.  This �point and click� writing system is far removed from the �how� tools of our scribal Egyptian predecessors.  While handwriting used to be a standardized system at worst and an individualized art form at best, it has mostly degenerated into scribbles and doodles.  How can the contemporary generation of Egyptology students hope to understand what it meant to write without a mouse?  

Thirdly, why we need to study ancient handwriting questions our purpose.   Asking if the study of handwriting has any value may lead us in some surprising directions.  Since there is no longer any use for the �Palmer Method�, it is even harder to see any use for studying such an obsolete writing system as Egyptian hieratic.  Why would anyone want to set about discerning the elements of some ancient equivalent.  Yet, on one level, that is exactly what I have set out to do through the Hieratic Font Project. 
  
This particular study relates to the Egyptian equivalent of the letter �A.�   The irony is that I am using the very computer technology that is bringing about the (possible) end of handwriting.  So it is unclear whether or not there will be any audience in the near future capable of understanding the concept of �handwriting.�  The first step in the future may be teaching the nature of handwriting in general.

Considerable progress in this approach has been made since my pioneering articles �Writing A Hieratic Primer� GM 167 (1998): 49-59, and �Orthographic notes on the Tale of the Doomed Prince�, Z�S 126 (1999): 111-6.   Two years ago, I published the first, and introductory volume of this series, together with the first computer fonts for hieratic.  It was truly an introductory study.  For example, there were then only 4 single variations and 8 groups letter and ligatures of A1, the sign studied in this article. This present article provides 342 variations, or nearly thirty times the amount of that initial study. 

Several friends and colleagues have kindly pointed out the apparent inappropriateness of titling such a work �paleography� in the first place.  In certain philological respects, I would have to agree.  The first volume does not reach the advanced needs for in depth hieratic studies, but I would quickly add that it was never intended for that purpose; it is after all �Introductory�.  Instead of picking any particular handwriting styles, the first volume attempted to reconstruct a sort of �Palmer Method� of the Egyptian scribe of the New Kingdom, by standardizing the basic elements of several handwriting styles.  Noting the basic elements found in several variations.  When there were extremes of a great enough nature, I presented two or more variation for reference.  It could easily be argued that I left out important variations, and indeed important signs for consideration, but that indeed was also part of its nature as an introductory work.  It should be especially useful for beginning hieratic students, Egyptologists with an interest in calligraphy, as a starting point for hieratic specialization, and the general public interested in learning an overview of how hieratic was written.  It was never intended as the final word on Late Egyptian hieratic, nor was it intended to reproduce any particular scribal handwriting. 

The following study is a first step in a far more exhaustive analysis of hieratic, with the goal of capturing each nuance of the ancient scribes brush strokes, including the mistakes.  It has been based largely on the research by Stefan Wimmer, in his Hieratische Pal�ographie der Nicht-Literarischen Ostraka der 19. und 20 basiert. Dynastie, Band 28 in der �gypten und Altes Testament Serie, Wiesbaden, 1995.  The paleographic goal should be evident herein; illustrating the incredible potential for this line of research to not only replicate the fine shades and nuances of individual handwriting styles, but also to quantify that individuality by numeric code.  


Discussion of "The Seated Man Sign" (Gardiner A1)

The systematic analysis of A1 provides some useful points for discussion. To begin with, the majority of A1 signs used in groups and ligatures began with one particular brush stroke, a left facing short diagonal (7) or a slightly longer 7.  The second most common stroke was a small left facing curve (11) or a larger 11.  Whenever one sets up a classification system, there are always shades of distinction that fall either between or slightly outside the parameters of categories.   That being said, it was usually clear, which of these stroke types the scribe had intended.  However, brush stroke difference was the degree of curvature versus straightness or angularity.  In certain cases it was difficult to judge between them.  If the curve was minimal or almost not present it was usually discounted.   The data is provided from a temporarily and spatially defined corpus of inscriptions as assembled and first studied by Stefan Wimmer in Hieratische Pal�ographie der Nicht-Literarischen Ostraka der 19. und 20 basiert. Dynastie, Band 28, Part 2: Tables, pages 4 to 9, 15, 17, 25, 34, 65, 181, 192 to 193, 205, 217, 256, 267, 298, 304, 343 to 344, 348, 377, 384, 410, 414 and 423.  Most of the details in the stroke sequence handbook are fairly obvious, but I will proceed to elaborate a few points.  
 
The simplest forms of A1 are very little straight brushstrokes.  In general, the essential element for A1 contains at least one angle and/or curve.  In the group studied, there were only seventeen exceptions to this general principle; the short straight brushstrokes (2), (4), (7) and (8), the longer vertical 2 or the longer diagonal 8.   In some cases, such marks can be connecting elements or traces where the scribe has changed brush direction; turned toward the next character to be written.  These can be left vertically (2), horizontal (4), diagonal to the left (7) or diagonal to the right (8). The smallest curved brush strokes (Y) and (Z) rarely, if ever, appear alone to represent A1, but did appear in group writings.   Next in size and prominence are larger executions of some similar brushstrokes, 2 and 8, plus simple curved connecting strokes Y and Z, redirecting the brush in preparation for the next sign.  The right turned stroke Z is rarely used for A1, appearing only once in a group writing.  Curiously the larger diagonal left brushstroke 7 never appears alone to represent the A1 sign, although it is frequently found as a beginning brushstroke in ligatures.  It is combined with another stroke to form something like a less than �<� sign. 

Little or angled brushstrokes and stroke combinations are fairly common;  (24), (27), (28), (48), (4Z), (74), (78), (7Z), (82), (84), (87), (88), (8Y), (8Z), (Y2), (Y4), (Y8), (YZ), (ZZ).  There are also some more complicated variations (2Z2), (272), (724), (747), (788), (78Z), (8Z7) and (828).  Simple combinations of little brushstrokes are 2(8), 7(2), 7(4), 7(8), 7(YZ), 7(Z), 8(7), (Y)8, Y(2), Y(8) and Y(Z).  There are relatively few combinations, considering the number of possibilities.  There is one group of signs, 7(4), which is represented by several close variations, 7(42), 7(48), 7(482) and 7(4Z).  
While alone, A1 tended to be represented more prominently than as part of a ligature group.  The case of group writings and ligatures poses an especially interestingly situation for studying individual styles.  Among ligatures, the usual, and most simplistic form, ancient scribes wrote A1 as a single little brushstroke; for example a very small (8) or (2) dash.  This is especially true if A1 was not the first sign of the group.  If however A1 was the first sign, it quiet often had a rather simple form, but was larger; for example Y(8).  In the examples studied, A1 appeared frequently in combination with Z2.  Often this ligature grouping was represented by one of three brush stroke sequences 9(844), 94, or 98.  The complication of a ligature would seem to require A1 to balance the three vertical elongated strokes of Z2, but in two of the four cases, this was not true of scribal execution of the signs.  In one case, the scribe wrote Z2, as well as a typically rendered D36, with two very small closely spaced strokes (88).  Furthermore, the concept of A1 elongation is not supported when considering other ligatures and group writings.  For example, with D21 or N35, except for an unusual rendering of A1-D21, 7(2)84, 7, 4Z, there is a lack of A1 elongation.   The group writing of Q3-A1 also deserves special mention, because the scribe may not have intended to represent a separate A1 sign at all.  The large, bending curve wends itself under the small strokes, most probably are out of place.  It is almost the reverse of an Y1-A1 ligature from about the same time.  It is yet another example of the large sweeping calligraphic form, that appears to have been popular especially in the reigns of Ramses III and IV.  Two examples of D1-A1 having the same sweeping form, fall in the reign of Ramese III.   Q3-A1 and Y1-A1 are also interesting to compare with a ligature of Z7-Y1-A1, from the time of Ramses II.  This last example is similar, in that it used large curves, but is far more compact and controlled.
Click HERE to read about Prof. Gosline's most recent research on the famous Egyptian beauty, Queen Nefertiti, of the Amarna Period!