The hieroglyphic is the most ancient form of written sounds. The earliest
known monuments containing phonetic hieroglyphics date about forty
centuries ago, or six hundred years before the time of Moses, who is
supposed to have been versed in the knowledge of the hieroglyphs. Yet
nothing worthy of the name of an alphabet existed till a later period,
when the Phœnicians invented a purely alphabetic system, but suppressing
the vowels, and from this has originated all the modes of alphabetic
writing now used.[12] The Greeks introduced the vowels into their
graphic system, and so brought to perfection the invaluable invention of
alphabetic writing.
The discovery of the Rosetta stone furnished a clue to the method of
deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics; and Dr. Young and Champollion
were the first to make use of the suggestive opportunity. The words
_Ptolemy_ and _Cleopatra_ were made out; and these served as a key
or incentive to further investigations; and extensive and curious
volumes have been devoted to the interpretation of Egypt’s mysterious
inscriptions on monuments and writings on papyrus.
Among those who have investigated the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mr. R.
Lepsius is one of the most practical, for he has reduced the ancient
characters to typographical uses for the behoof of the delvers into the
earth’s earliest lore. He began the work soon after his return from
a scientific expedition to Egypt during the years 1842-46, and his
hieroglyphic types now completed number more than thirteen hundred. The
Prussian government furnishing the needful pecuniary means, his first
task was to ascertain the forms of hieroglyphic signs which would be most
suitable for typographical purposes, and here the labour was immense.
After laborious research, he reached the conclusion, that as European
print had been formed, not from the monumental characters of the Greeks
and Romans, but essentially from the current handwriting of documents
on parchment and paper, so the hieroglyphic type should follow, not the
chiseled or painted characters on the monuments, but the style of those
written on papyrus. The style and proportions having been established,
the punch-cutting was mostly executed by Mr. Ferdinand Theinhardt, the
excellent Prussian type-founder, who for a series of years has been
skilfully engaged in producing the matrices. We are indebted to Mr.
Theinhardt for the specimens here given; the first of which is the
hieroglyphic alphabet, and the second is the beginning of an ancient text
found in a leather roll of the Royal Museum of Berlin, referring to the
foundation of the temple of the Sun at On or Heliopolis in Egypt.