Hieratic

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Hieratic
Type:	Abjad with logographic elements
Languages:	Egyptian language
Time period:	Protodynastic Period–3rd century AD
Parent writing systems:	Egyptian hieroglyphs Hieratic
Child writing systems:	Demotic → Coptic → Merotitic → Old Nubian Byblos syllabary
Sister writing systems:	Cursive hieroglyphs
ISO 15924 code:	`Egyh`
Image:Prisse papyrus.jpg
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Hieratic is a writing system used in pharaonic Egypt that developed along side the hieroglyphic system,<ref>Goedicke 1988:vii–viii.</ref> to which it is intimately related. It was primarily written in ink with a reed brush on papyrus, allowing scribes to write quickly without resorting to the time consuming Hieroglyphs. The word hieratic derives from the Greek phrase γράμματα ἱερατικά (grammata hieratika; literally "priestly writing"), which was first used by Saint Clement of Alexandria in the second century AD,<ref>Goedicke 1988:vii; Wente 2001:2006. The reference is made in Clement's Stromata 5:4.</ref> as at that time hieratic was used only for religious texts, as had been the case for the previous thousand years.

1 Development
2 Uses and materials
3 Characteristics
4 Influence
5 Notes
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Development

Hieratic was first used during the Protodynastic Period, developing along side the more formal hieroglyphic script. It is an error to view hieratic as a derivative of hieroglyphic writing. The earliest texts from Egypt are produced with ink and brush, with no indication their signs are descendants of "hieroglyphs." True monumental hieroglyphs carved in stone did not appear until the 1st Dynasty, well after hieratic had been established as a scribal practice. The two writing systems, therefore, are related, parallel developments, rather than a single linear one.<ref>Goedicke 1988:vii–viii.</ref>

Hieratic was used throughout the pharaonic period, and into the Graeco-Roman period. However after about 660 BC, the Demotic script (and later Greek) replaced hieratic in most secular writing, but hieratic continued to be used by priestly class for several more centuries, at least into the Third century AD.

[edit] Uses and materials

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 Graeco-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 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.<ref>Baines 1983:583.</ref> In fact, it 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 in ink with a reed brush<ref>During the Roman period reed pens (calami) were also used.</ref> on papyrus, wood, or stone and pottery ostraca. Thousands of limestone ostraca have been found at the site of Deir al-Madinah, reveling a intimate picture into the lives of common Egyptian workmen. Besides papyrus, stone, ceramic sherds, and wood, there are hieratic texts on leather rolls, though few have survived. There are also hieratic texts written on cloth, especially on linen used in mummification. There are some hieratic texts inscribed on stone, a variety known as lapidary hieratic; these are particularly common on stelae from the 22nd Dynasty.

During the late 6th Dynasty hieratic was sometimes incised into mud tablets with a stylus, similar to cuneiform. About five hundred of these tablets have been discovered in the governor's palace at Ayn Asil (Balat),<ref>Soukiassian, Wuttman, Pantalacci 2002.</ref> and single example from the site of Ayn al-Gazzarin, both in the Dakhla Oasis.<ref>Posener-Kriéger 1992; Pantalacci 1998.</ref> At the time the tablets were made, Dakhla was located far from centers of papyrus production.<ref>Parkinson and Quirke 1995:20.</ref> 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.

[edit] Characteristics

Hieratic script (unlike cursive hieroglyphs) always reads from right to left. Initially hieratic could be written in either columns or horizontal lines, but after the 12th Dynasty (specifically during the reign of Amenemhat III), horizontal writing became the standard. This may have been to prevent the scribe's hand from smudging his work, but it also may have been to facilitate easier consultation of a rolled documents, as well as increasing writing speed.

Hieratic is noted for its cursive nature and use of ligatures for two or three characters. Hieratic script also utilizes a much more standardized orthography that hieroglyphs; texts written in the 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 though Egyptologists have invented hieroglyphic forms for hieroglyphic transcriptions and typesetting.<ref>Gardiner 1929.</ref> Several hieratic characters have diacritical additions so that similar signs could easily be distinguished. Particularly complicated signs might be written with a single stroke.

Hieratic often is present in any given period in two forms, a highly-ligatured, cursive businesshand used for administrative documents, and a broad uncial bookhand used 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 to shorthand.

A highly cursive form of hieratic known as "Abnormal Hieratic" was used in the Theban area from the second half of the 20th dynasty until the beginning of the 26th Dynasties.<ref>Wente 2001:210. See also Malinine [1974].</ref> It derives from the script of Upper Egyptian adminstrative 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 26th Dynasty when Demotic was established as a standard administrative script throughout a re-unified Egypt.

[edit] Influence

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Hieratic has had influence on a number of other writing systems. The most obvious is that on Demotic, its direct descendant. Related to this are the Demotic signs of the Meroitic script, and the borrowed Demotic characters used the Coptic alphabet and Old Nubian.

Outside of the Nile valley, many of the signs used in the Byblos syllabary were apparently borrowed from Old Kingdom hieratic signs.<ref>Hoch 1990.</ref> It is also known that early Hebrew utilized hieratic numerals.<ref>Aharoni 1966; Goldwasser 1991.</ref>

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

Aharoni, Yohanan (1966). "The Use of Hieratic Numerals in Hebrew Ostraca and the Shekel Weights". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 184: 13–19.
Baines, John R. (1983). "Literacy and Ancient Egyptian Society". Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science 18 (new series): 572–599.
Gardiner, Alan H. (1929). "The Transcription of New Kingdom Hieratic". Journal of Egyptian Archæology 15: 48–55.
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.
Janssen, Jacobus Johannes (2000). "Idiosyncrasies in Late Ramesside Hieratic Writing". Journal of Egyptian Archæology 86: 51–56.
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. Cairo: Imprimerie de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 31–35. Vol. 1.
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.
Möller, Georg Christian Julius (1927–1936). Hieratische Paläographie: Die aegyptische Buchschrift in ihrer Entwicklung von der Fünften Dynastie bis zur römischen Kaiserzeit., 2nd edition, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’schen Buchhandlungen. 4 vols.
Möller, Georg Christian Julius (ed.) (1927–1935). Hieratische Lesestücke für den akademischen Gebrauch., 2nd edition, Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’schen Buchhandlungen. 3 vols.
Pantalacci, Laure (1998). "La documentation épistolaire du palais des gouverneurs à Balat–ˁAyn Asīl". Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale 98: 303–315.
Parkinson, Richard B., Stephen G. J. Quirke (1995). Papyrus. London: British Museum Press.
Posener-Kriéger, Paule (1992). “Les tablettes en terre crue de Balat”, Élisabeth Lalou (ed.): Les Tablettes à écrire de l'Antiquité à l'époque moderne. Turnhout: Brepols, 41–49.
Soukiassian, Georges, Michel Wuttmann, Laure Pantalacci (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. ISBN 2724703138.
Verhoeven, Ursula (2001). Untersuchungen zur späthieratischen Buchschrift. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters and Departement Oriëntalistiek.
Wente, Edward Frank (2001). “Scripts: Hieratic”, Donald Redford (ed.): The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press, 206–210. Vol. 3.
Wimmer, Stefan Jakob (1989). Hieratische Paläographie der nicht-literarischen Ostraka der 19. und 20. Dynastie. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.