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Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, is an American underground hip hop collective based in Oakland, California. It was founded in the early 1990s by rapper Del the Funky Homosapien.
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hieroglyphic writing, system that employs characters in the form of pictures. Those individual signs, called hieroglyphs, may be read either as pictures, as symbols for objects, or as symbols for sounds.
The name hieroglyphic (from the Greek word for “sacred carving”) is first encountered in the writings of Diodorus Siculus (1st century bce). Earlier, other Greeks had spoken of sacred signs when referring to Egyptian writing. Among the Egyptian scripts, the Greeks labeled as hieroglyphic the script that they found on temple walls and public monuments, in which the characters were pictures sculpted in stone. The Greeks distinguished this script from two other forms of Egyptian writing that were written with ink on papyrus or on other smooth surfaces. These were known as the hieratic, which was still employed during the time of the ancient Greeks for religious texts, and the demotic, the cursive script used for ordinary documents.
Hieroglyphic, in the strict meaning of the word, designates only the writing on Egyptian monuments. The word has, however, been applied since the late 19th century to the writing of other peoples, insofar as it consists of picture signs used as writing characters. For example, the name hieroglyphics is always used to designate the monumental inscriptions of the Indus civilization and of the Hittites, who also possessed other scripts, in addition to the Mayan, the Incan, and Easter Island writing forms and also the signs on the Phaistos Disk on Crete.
Because of their pictorial form, hieroglyphs were difficult to write and were used only for monument inscriptions. They were usually supplemented in the writing of a people by other, more convenient scripts. Among living writing systems, hieroglyphic scripts are no longer used.
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The most ancient hieroglyphs date from the end of the 4th millennium bce and comprise annotations incised onto pottery jars and ivory plaques deposited in tombs, presumably for the purpose of identification of the dead. Although by no means can all of these earliest signs be read today, it is nonetheless probable that these forms are based on the same system as the later classical hieroglyphs. In individual cases, it can be said with certainty that it is not the copied object that is designated but rather another word phonetically similar to it. This circumstance means that hieroglyphs were from the very beginning phonetic symbols. An earlier stage consisting exclusively of picture writing using actual illustrations of the intended words cannot be shown to have existed in Egypt; indeed, such a stage can with great probability be ruled out. No development from pictures to letters took place; hieroglyphic writing was never solely a system of picture writing. It can also be said with certainty that the jar marks (signs on the bottom of clay vessels) that occur at roughly the same period do not represent a primitive form of the script. Rather, these designs developed in parallel fashion to hieroglyphic writing and were influenced by it.
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It is not possible to prove the connection of hieroglyphs to the cuneiform characters used by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia. Such a relationship is improbable because the two scripts are based on entirely different systems. What is conceivable is a general tendency toward words being fixed by the use of signs, without transmission of particular systems.
The need to identify a pictorial representation with a royal individual or a specific, unique event, such as a hunt or a particular battle, led to the application of hieroglyphic writing to a monumental context. Hieroglyphs added to a scene signified that this illustration represented a particular war rather than an unspecified one or war in general; the writing reflected a new attitude toward time and a view of history as unique events in time. Beginning in the 1st dynasty (c. 2925–c. 2775 bce), images of nonroyal persons were also annotated with their names or titles, a further step toward expressing individuality and uniqueness. The so-called annalistic ivory tablets of the first two dynasties were pictorial representations of the events of a year with specifically designated personal names, places, and incidents. For example, accompanying a scene of the pharaoh’s triumph over his enemies is the annotation “the first occasion of the defeat of the Libyans.” Simultaneously, the writing of the Egyptians began to appear unaccompanied by pictorial representations, especially on cylinder seals. These roller-shaped incised stones were rolled over the moist clay of jar stoppers. Their inscription prevented the sealed jar from being covertly opened and at the same time described its contents and designated the official responsible for it. In the case of wine, its origin from a specific vineyard and often also the destination of the shipment were designated, and, as a rule, so was the name of the reigning king.
From the stone inscriptions of the 1st dynasty, only individual names are known, these being mainly the names of kings. In the 2nd dynasty, titles and names of offerings appear, and, at the end of this dynasty, sentences occur for the first time. The discovery of a blank papyrus scroll in the grave of a high official, however, shows that longer texts could have been written much earlier—i.e., since the early part of the 1st dynasty.
Egyptian hieroglyphs (/ ˈ h aɪ r ə ˌ ɡ l ɪ f s /, / ˈ h aɪ r oʊ ˌ ɡ l ɪ f s /) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic , syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 100 distinct characters.
Nov 16, 2016 · Ancient Egyptian Writing is known as hieroglyphics ('sacred carvings') and developed at some point prior to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150 -2613 BCE). According to some scholars, the concept of the written word was first developed in Mesopotamia and came to Egypt through trade .
- Joshua J. Mark
The term hieroglyphics refers to a system of writing using ancient Egyptian symbols. The hieroglyphics involved a series of 'picture' words. Consisting of several hundred words, this system of writing was intensely complex and very labor intensive. The first hieroglyphics were used on buildings and tombs.
Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, is an American underground hip hop collective based in Oakland, California. It was founded in the early 1990s by rapper Del the Funky Homosapien.
Hieroglyphics is a writing system invented in Egypt around 5000 years ago. It is the second oldest form of writing, originating a few hundred years after cuneiform, which uses wedge-shaped ...
