Cursive hieroglyphs, or hieroglyphic

book hand A book hand was any of several stylized handwriting scripts used during ancient and medieval times. It was intended for legibility and often used in transcribing official documents (prior to the development of printing and similar technologies). ...

, are a form of

Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1, ...

commonly used for handwritten religious documents, such as the Book of the Dead. This style of writing was typically written with ink and a reed brush on

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

, wood, or leather. It was particularly common during the

Ramesside Period The Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XX, alternatively 20th Dynasty or Dynasty 20) is the third and last dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian New Kingdom period, lasting from 1189 BC to 1077 BC. The 19th and 20th Dynasties furthermore togeth ...

, and many famous documents, such as the

Papyrus of Ani The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus manuscript in the form of a scroll with cursive hieroglyphs and color illustrations that was created c. 1250 BCE, during the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt. Egyptians compiled an individu ...

, use it. It was also employed on wood for religious literature such as the Coffin Texts. Cursive hieroglyphs should not be confused with the truly cursive form of hieroglyphs known as hieratic. Hieratic has many ligatures and signs unique to itself. However, there is a certain degree of influence from hieratic in the visual appearance of some signs. One significant difference is that the orientation of cursive hieroglyphs is not constant, reading right to left or left to right depending on the context, whereas hieratic is always read right to left.Davies 199
93
/ref> A right-to-left reading direction is also most common in the writing of cursive hieroglyphs, but they are usually arranged in columns rather than rows.

Notes

References

*Cruz-Uribe, Eugene. 2001. "Scripts: An Overview." In ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt'', edited by Donald B. Redford. Vol. 3. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 192–198 94–195 *

External links

* {{Ancient Egypt topics Book of the Dead Bronze Age writing systems Egyptian languages Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian inventions