EGYPTIAN   WRITING.

The system of writing employed by the earliest inhabi¬
tants of the Valley of the Nile known to us was entirely
pictorial, and had much in common with the pictorial
writing of the Chinese and the ancient people who migrated
into Babylonia from the East. There appears to be no
inscription in which pictorial characters are used entirely,
for the earliest inscriptions now known to us contain
alphabetic characters. Inscriptions upon statues, coffins,
tombs, temples, etc., in which figures or representations of
objects are employed, are usually termed 'Hieroglyphic'
(from the Greek cepo^/\u(^LK69); for writing on papyri a
cursive form of hieroglyphic called 'Hieratic' (from the
Greek UpaTtKoi) was employed by the priests, who, at
times, also used hieroglyphic; a third kind of writing,
consisting of purely conventional modifications of hieratic
characters, which preserve little of the original form, was
employed for social and business purposes; it is called
demotic (from the Greek SruaoTiKos). The following will
show the different forms of the characters in the three
styles of writing—

I.    Hieratic