Egyptian hieratic script
Escritura hierática egipcia
- Date
- c. 2700 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Memphis, Giza, Egypt
- Credited to
- Scribes of pharaonic Egypt
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A cursive form of hieroglyphs, written with a reed pen and ink on papyrus, that simplifies signs for fast writing. For over two millennia it was the everyday script of administration, literature and medicine.
The first cursive signs already appear in the Thinite period; the administrative papyri of Abusir (c. 2400 BC) are the first extensive texts.
What it led to
- administration, letters and medical and mathematical texts on papyrus
- the source of Demotic and, indirectly, of the idea of cursive writing
- literary texts such as the Story of Sinuhe