ance, making it seem necessary, or at least highly
desirable, either to spell such words with different signs, or, having
spelled them in the same way, to introduce the varied determinatives.

Here are some examples of discrimination between words of the same sound
by the use of different signs:

[Illustration: 302b.jpg HIEROGLYPHICS]

Here, it will be observed, exactly the same expedient is adopted which
we still retain when we discriminate between words of the same sound by
different spelling, as to, two, too; whole, hole; through, threw, etc.

But the more usual Egyptian method was to resort to the determinatives;
the result seems to us most extraordinary. After what has been said, the
following examples will explain themselves:

[Illustration: 303.jpg HIEROGLYPHICS]

It goes without saying that the great mass of people in Egypt were never
able to write at all. Had they been accustomed to do so, the Egyptians
would have been a nation of artists. Even as the case stands, a
remarkable number of men must have had their artistic sense well
developed, for the birds, animals, and human figures constantly
presented on their hieroglyphic scrolls are drawn with a fidelity which
the average European of to-day would certainly find far beyond his
skill.

Until Professor Petrie* published his "Medum," and Professor Erman
his "Grammar," no important work on Egyptian hieroglyphic writing had
appeared in recent years.

* The information as to the modern investigation in
hieroglyphics has been obtained from F. L. Griffith's paper
in the 6th Memoir of the Archaeological Survey on
Hieroglyphics from the collections of the Egypt Exploration
Fund, London, 1894-95.

Professor Petrie's "Medum" is the mainstay of the student in regard to
examples of form for the old kingdom; but for all periods detailed and
trustworthy drawings and photographs are found among the enormous mass
of published texts.*

*To these may now be added the 105 coloured signs in Beni
Hasan, Part III., and still more numerous examples in the
Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund (Archaeological
Survey), for the season 1895-96.

There is an important collection of facsimiles at University College,
London, made for Professor Petrie by Miss Paget. A large proportion of
these are copied from the collections from Beni Hasan and El Bersheh;
others are from coffins of later periods, and have only paleographical
interes