The ancient Egyptian writing system, used for a very long time - about 3,500 years - has come a long way. From the first pictographic signs, it gradually came to the appearance of cursive (italic) letters, which are usually called demotic. What it is, how it arose, developed and how it ceased to exist, we will consider in this article.
What is "demotic writing"
The meaning of the word "demotic" - "folk" - reflects the origin and purpose of this type of writing. The fact that the Egyptians had a special cursive script was already known to Herodotus, who gave him the name "demotics of grammar", which in translation from ancient Greek means "folk writing." It is a cursive cursive. In paleography, an auxiliary historical discipline that studies various inscriptions, this type of writing is called italics.
We have heard quite a few memorials of demotic writing. Records were made on papyrus or ostracons - clay shards or suitable fragments of limestone (papyrus is a rather expensive material, and not everyone could afford to use it). Signs were applied from right to left.
The first attempts to decrypt
Scientists tried to approach reading demotics even before they achieved their first successes in deciphering hieroglyphs. At first, it was just demotic writing that seemed simpler. What is this, however, no one could understand for a long time.
A huge success for the decoders was the discovery in 1799 of the Rosetta stone. An inscription made in Egyptian and Greek was discovered on the monument. The Egyptian hieroglyphic part of it turned out to be duplicated by a demotic text. Some success in reading mysterious letters was achieved only by I. Okerblad and S. de Sacy, who managed to decipher individual characters. So, Okerblad was able to read all the proper names preserved in the Greek part in the demotic text, thanks to which he recognized 16 characters. However, the writing system remained a mystery.
Triumph J.-F. Champollion
The French scientist, who holds the honor of deciphering the ancient Egyptian script in 1822, worked simultaneously on the hieroglyphs and the demotic inscription. But for a long time he was mistaken in assessing the nature and age of demotics. So, Champollion suggested that this is the most ancient Egyptian letter, and also for a long time held the opinion that it, unlike hieroglyphs, has a completely alphabetic character. All of this turned out to be wrong.
Nevertheless, perseverance, a brilliant command of the Coptic language (this is the direct descendant of Egyptian), a method of cross-analysis of different parts of the inscription and the intuition of a talented scientist in the end brought him well-deserved success.
History of Demotic Writing
It turned out that this is italic font, the latest of all types of Egyptian writing. It arose approximately in the 7th century BC. e. as a further simplification of hieratic cursive writing, it retained mainly the structure and method inherent in other types of writing of the Egyptians - hieratics and hieroglyphics. The language of "folk writing" has some distinctive features, reflecting the evolutionary process: if in the early texts it is close to the so-called New Egyptian, then in later monuments - the Roman and Byzantine periods - it is much closer to the Coptic language.
The demotic writing reached particular distribution during the Hellenistic period - the time of the reign of the Ptolemaic dynasty (the last third of the 4th century BC - 30 BC). Apparently, very many Egyptians were literate then.
In the Roman period, the demotic texts gradually become less and less, while the number of documents written in Greek increases. Little by little, the Egyptian "folk letter" began to go out of use. In the most recent monuments, signs of the Greek alphabet are often even embedded in the demotic notation. The last example of a demotic text known to science was written in 452. It has been used for over a thousand years.
Features demotics
The "folk italics" of the ancient Egyptians are characterized by some features that reflect its transitional nature while preserving the generally conservative, very ancient written tradition.
Firstly, the number of written characters has decreased significantly compared to hieratics, while the number of composite characters (the so-called ligatures) has increased.
Secondly, the use of phonetic, alphabetic characters has become more frequent. In addition, attempts were noted with the help of signs for consonants to transmit vowels on the letter (in the Egyptian letter there were no independent signs for the transmission of vowels, this is due to the peculiarities of its morphology and grammar; a similar tradition has developed in Arabic writing).
These trends have led to the polysemy of a large number of individual signs and ligatures, and, conversely, to the multiplicity of spellings of the same phoneme. As a result, the demotic writing turned out to be extremely confusing and difficult to read. It is possible that it turned out to be difficult for the people who used it: it was not without reason that they inserted Greek letters into the Egyptian demotic text - probably the ambiguity already interfered with the letter, causing doubts and hesitation in the choice of a particular sign. Using the Greek alphabet was incomparably easier.
Where was the "popular letter" used
Of course, initially demotics was not intended for writing liturgical texts or royal decrees. It really was a popular letter, used in private correspondence, execution of various transactions, business reports, sometimes legal documents and other “business papyri”.
During the Persian conquest of Egypt, which lasted from 525 to 332 years. BC e., demotics goes beyond privacy. Chronicles of Persian rule are known, such as a record of a dignitary of Ujagorresent, who left a detailed account of the capture of Egypt by the Persians.
In the Hellenistic era, the use of demotic writing in ancient Egypt expanded significantly. Using it, they began to write official documents, religious and magical texts, various compositions of medical and scientific content. Literary works have appeared on demotics, such as the famous Tales of Satni Hemuas, the didactic Teaching of the priest Ankhsheonk to his youngest son, or Tales of the Pharaoh Petubast (historical person).
This system finally replaced ancient hieratics as a type of cursive writing. Demotic texts even began to be carved in stone - a vivid example of this is the Rosetta stone. This grateful stele from the priests, glorifying King Ptolemy V Epiphanes, dates back to 196 BC. e.
Heritage and study prospects
The Egyptian demotic italics failed to go beyond the millennia-old tradition of the archaic and cumbersome Egyptian writing system. It was supplanted by a simple and convenient Greek alphabet. However, demotics still did not disappear without a trace. At first it spread south to Nubia and Northern Sudan, where it served as the basis for the creation of the Meroitic script, which has been used for seven centuries. In addition, six signs of the demotic font were preserved in the Coptic alphabet, as they transmitted sounds that could not be expressed using Greek letters.
Well, Egyptologists still have a lot of work to study demotic writing. The number of finds is large, and not all of them are described. There are textbooks of texts on demotics, dictionaries, but at least there is no relatively complete paleographic collection yet. So what Egyptologists have ahead is a truly uncultivated field for activity.