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HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING
different signs for the same sound, which could be represented in many ways. Even if we agreed that the Egyptians had acquired an "alphabet," we should conclude that they did not know how to use it. As a matter of fact, in practice they did not employ it when they could use word-signs or multi-consonantal phonograms, and they rarely employed it without determinatives, i.e., signs which were not to be read, but served simply as guides to the sense of the word; thus, the "alphabetic" signs needed "to be guided." In general, word-signs, tri-consonantal, bi-consonantal and uni-consonantal signs, and determinatives were combined into a cumbersome, complicated script, and this crystallized aspect of the writing
D
Kaleph)
(avin)
J.
wwws
E
C
D
D
15
5th. = (7)
451
Δ
Fig. 29-Earliest hieroglyphic consonantal signs ("alphabet"?) was maintained during the 3,000 years and more of its history. The latest hieroglyphic inscriptions belong to the sixth century A.D. (reign of Justinian).
The direction of writing was normally from right to left, the signs facing the beginning of the line (Fig. 28); sometimes, however, inscriptions were written from left to right, and sometimes, for purposes of symmetry, in both directions; in the latter cases, each of the two parts usually faces towards the centre, reading from there outward.
The Egyptian scripts were essentially national (in complete contrast with cuneiform writing); they originated in Egypt, they were employed only for Egyptian speech, they developed in Egypt, and they died out in Egypt.
