Egyptian Demotic script
Escritura demótica egipcia
- Date
- c. 650 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Sais, Gharbia, Egypt
- Credited to
- Scribes of Lower Egypt under the 26th Dynasty
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A script even more cursive and abbreviated than hieratic, born in the Delta for legal and commercial use. It replaced hieratic in civil life and was written until the 5th century AD.
What it led to
- contracts, letters and literature in Egyptian during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods
- the middle version of the Rosetta Stone decree, key to decipherment
- evolution towards the Coptic alphabet