d plain, or decorated with colors. The colored are divided into two
distinct classes, the monochromatic of one simple tone, and the
polychromatic, or those which rendered with more or less fidelity the
color of the object they were intended to depict. The hieroglyphic
figures were arranged in vertical columns or horizontal lines, and
grouped together as circumstances required, so as to leave no spaces
unnecessarily vacant. They were written from right to left, or from
left to right. The order in which the characters were to be read, was
shown by the direction in which the figures are placed, as their heads
are invariably turned towards the reader. A single line of
hieroglyphics--the dedication of a temple or of any other monument,
for example--proceeds sometimes one half from left to right, and the
other half from right to left; but in this case a sign, such as the
sacred tau, or an obelisk, which has no particular direction, is
placed in the middle of the inscription, and it is from that sign that
the two halves of the inscription take each an opposite direction.

The period when hieroglyphics--the oldest Egyptian characters--were
first used, is uncertain. They are found in the Great Pyramid of the
time of the fourth dynasty, and had evidently been invented long
before, having already assumed a cursive style.[23] This shows them to
be far older than any other known writing; and the written documents
of the ancient languages of Asia, the Sanskrit and the Zend, are of a
recent time compared with those of Egypt, even if the date of the
Rig-Veda in the fifteenth century B.C. be proved. Manetho shows that
the invention of writing was known in the reign of Athoth (the son
and successor of Menes), the second King of Egypt, when he ascribes to
him the writing of the anatomical books, and tradition assigned to it
a still earlier origin. At all events, hieroglyphics, and the use of
the papyrus, with the usual reed pen, are shown to have been common
when the pyramids were built, and their style in the sculptures proves
that they were then a very old invention. In hieroglyphics of the
earliest periods there were fewer phonetic characters than in after
ages, these periods being nearer to the original picture-writing. The
number of signs also varied at different times; but they may be
reckoned at from 900 to 1,000. Various new characters were added at
subsequent periods, and a still greater number were introduced under
the Ptolemies