[Illustration: HIEROGLYPHICS.]

Hieroglyphics (styled by the Egyptians _skhai en neter tur_--writing
of sacred words) are composed of signs representing objects of the
physical world, as animals, plants, stars, man and his different
members, and various objects. They are pure or linear, the latter
being a reduction of the former. The pure were always sculptured or
painted. The linear were generally used in the earlier papyri,
containing funeral rituals.

They have been divided into four classes:--1, Representational or
ikonographic; 2, Symbolic or tropical; 3, Enigmatic; 4, Phonetic. From
the examination of hieroglyphic inscriptions of different ages, it is
evident that these four classes of symbols were used promiscuously,
according to the pleasure and convenience of the artist.

1. Ikonographic, representational, or imitative hieroglyphics, are
those that present the images of the things expressed, as the sun's
disk to signify the sun, the crescent to signify the moon. These may
be styled pure hieroglyphics.

2. The symbolical, or tropical (by Bunsen termed ideographic),
substituted one object for another, to which it bore an analogy, as
heaven and a star expressed night; a leg in a trap, deceit; two arms
stretched towards heaven expressed the word offering; a censer with
some grains of incense, adoration; a bee was made to signify Lower
Egypt; the fore-quarters of a lion, strength; a crocodile, darkness.
The following hieroglyphics were on the triumph Hall Thothmes III.,
and mean, after translating:

[Illustration]

"I went: I order that you reduce and crush all the high officers of
Tsahi. I cast them together with all their possessions at thy feet."

This kind of character appears to have been particularly invented for
the expression of abstract ideas, especially belonging to religion or
the royal power. These are the characters generally alluded to by the
ancients when they speak of hieroglyphics, and are the most difficult
of interpretation.

3. Enigmatic are those in which an emblematic figure is put in lieu of
the one intended to be represented, as a hawk for the sun; a seated
figure with a curved beard, for a god. These three kinds were either
used _alone_, or _in company_ with the phonetically written word they
represented. Thus: 1. The word Ra, sun, might be written in letters
only, or be also followed by the ikonograph, the _solar disk_ (which
if alone would still have the same meaning--Ra, th