Lichtheim, Miriam (2006), Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom, with a new foreword by Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24843-0 However, many of these apparent spelling errors constitute an issue of chronology. Spelling and standards varied ove It has been argued that the meaning of hieroglyphics was lost throughout the later periods of Egyptian history as people forgot how to read and write the symbols. Actually, hieroglyphics were still in use as late as the Ptolemaic Dynasty and only fell out of favor with the rise of the new religion of Christianity during the early Roman Period. There were lapses throughout the country's history in the use of hieroglyphics, but the art was not lost until the world the script represented changed. As Coptic script continued to be used in the new paradigm of Egyptian culture; hieroglyphic writing faded into memory. By the time of the Arab Invasion of the 7th century CE, no one living in Egypt knew what the hieroglyphic inscriptions meant. Then in the 7th century BCE, a phase of writing developed which was called Demotic. Demotic was similar to hieratic, but was closer to the spoken language of the time. Demotic came to be used for not just documents but for religious purposes as well. As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek.

Seters, John Van (1997), In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History, New Haven: Yale University Press, ISBN 1-57506-013-2 Greenstein, Edward L. (1995), "Autobiographies in Ancient Western Asia", Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, New York: Scribner, pp.2421–2432Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded-cloth glyph (𓋴) seems to have been originally an /s/ and the door-bolt glyph (𓊃) a /θ/ sound, but these both came to be pronounced /s/, as the /θ/ sound was lost. [ clarification needed] A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts. p +ḫpr +r +j (the four complementaries frame the triliteral sign of the scarab beetle) → it reads ḫpr.j, meaning the name " Khepri", with the final glyph being the determinative for 'ruler or god'. Hieroglyphics is the most ornate script among Ancient Egyptian writing. It was used for monumental inscriptions, such as those found on great temples and tombs . The discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 helped scholars to work out the meaning of the hieroglyphs. This is a stone inscribed with writing. It preserves multiple languages, including hieroglyphs, next to each other. This made it much easier for readers to translate ancient Egypt’s writing system. Richard B. Parkinson and Ludwig D. Morenz write that ancient Egyptian literature—narrowly defined as belles-lettres ("beautiful writing")—was not recorded in written form until the early Twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. [61] Old Kingdom texts served mainly to maintain the divine cults, preserve souls in the afterlife, and document accounts for practical uses in daily life. It was not until the Middle Kingdom that texts were written for the purpose of entertainment and intellectual curiosity. [62] Parkinson and Morenz also speculate that written works of the Middle Kingdom were transcriptions of the oral literature of the Old Kingdom. [63] It is known that some oral poetry was preserved in later writing; for example, litter-bearers' songs were preserved as written verses in tomb inscriptions of the Old Kingdom. [62]

Underground Egyptian tombs built in the desert provide possibly the most protective environment for the preservation of papyrus documents. For example, there are many well-preserved Book of the Dead funerary papyri placed in tombs to act as afterlife guides for the souls of the deceased tomb occupants. [24] However, it was only customary during the late Middle Kingdom and first half of the New Kingdom to place non-religious papyri in burial chambers. Thus, the majority of well-preserved literary papyri are dated to this period. [24] A fairly consistent core of 700 glyphs was used to write Classical or Middle Egyptian (ca. 2000-1650 BC), though during the Greco-Roman eras (332 BC - ca. 400 AD) over 5,000 glyphs were in use. By combining the following glyphs, any number could be constructed. The higher value signs were always written in front of the lower value ones.The breakthrough in decipherment came only with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops in 1799 (during Napoleon's Egyptian invasion). Wilson 2003, pp.22–23, 91–92; Parkinson 2002, p.73; Wente 1990, pp.1–2; Spalinger 1990, p.297; Allen 2000, p.6. This mature system of ancient Egyptian writing took shape in the period of the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE). It continued through the New Kingdom and Late Period of ancient Egyptian history, and even into the period of Roman rule in Egypt in the 4th century CE! The ancient Egyptian model letters and epistles are grouped into a single literary genre. Papyrus rolls sealed with mud stamps were used for long-distance letters, while ostraca were frequently used to write shorter, non-confidential letters sent to recipients located nearby. [140] Letters of royal or official correspondence, originally written in hieratic, were sometimes given the exalted status of being inscribed on stone in hieroglyphs. [141] The various texts written by schoolboys on wooden writing boards include model letters. [89] Private letters could be used as epistolary model letters for schoolboys to copy, including letters written by their teachers or their families. [142] However, these models were rarely featured in educational manuscripts; instead fictional letters found in numerous manuscripts were used. [143] The common epistolary formula used in these model letters was "The official A. saith to the scribe B". [144]

Errors of omission in the drawing of signs, which are much more problematic when the writing is cursive (hieratic) writing, but especially demotic, where the schematization of the signs is extreme. Breasted, James Henry (1962), Ancient Records of Egypt: Vol. I, The First to the Seventeenth Dynasties, & Vol. II, the Eighteenth Dynasty, New York: Russell & Russell, ISBN 0-8462-0134-8 The "instructions" or "teaching" genre, as well as the genre of "reflective discourses", can be grouped in the larger corpus of wisdom literature found in the ancient Near East. [81] The genre is didactic in nature and is thought to have formed part of the Middle Kingdom scribal education syllabus. [82] However, teaching texts often incorporate narrative elements that can instruct as well as entertain. [82] Parkinson asserts that there is evidence that teaching texts were not created primarily for use in scribal education, but for ideological purposes. [83] For example, Adolf Erman (1854–1937) writes that the fictional instruction given by Amenemhat I (r. 1991–1962 BC) to his sons "...far exceeds the bounds of school philosophy, and there is nothing whatever to do with school in a great warning his children to be loyal to the king". [84] While narrative literature, embodied in works such as The Eloquent Peasant, emphasize the individual hero who challenges society and its accepted ideologies, the teaching texts instead stress the need to comply with society's accepted dogmas. [85] Many other scholars would attempt to decipher the meaning of the ancient Egyptian symbols without success between Kircher's work and the 19th century CE but had no basis for understanding what they were working with. Even when it seemed as though the symbols suggested a certain pattern such as one would find in a writing system, there was no way to recognize what those patterns translated to. In 1798 CE, however, when Napoleon's army invaded Egypt, the Rosetta Stone was discovered by one of his lieutenants, who recognized its potential importance and had it sent to Napoleon's institute for study in Cairo. The Rosetta Stone is a proclamation in Greek, hieroglyphics, and demotic from the reign of Ptolemy V (204-181 BCE). All three texts relay the same information in keeping with the Ptolemaic ideal of a multi-cultural society; whether one read Greek, hieroglyphic, or demotic, one would be able to understand the message on the stone. There is limited but solid evidence in Egyptian literature and art for the practice of oral reading of texts to audiences. [53] The oral performance word "to recite" ( šdj) was usually associated with biographies, letters, and spells. [54] Singing ( ḥsj) was meant for praise songs, love songs, funerary laments, and certain spells. [54] Discourses such as the Prophecy of Neferti suggest that compositions were meant for oral reading among elite gatherings. [54] In the 1st millennium BC Demotic short story cycle centered on the deeds of Petiese, the stories begin with the phrase "The voice which is before Pharaoh", which indicates that an oral speaker and audience was involved in the reading of the text. [55] A fictional audience of high government officials and members of the royal court are mentioned in some texts, but a wider, non-literate audience may have been involved. [56] For example, a funerary stela of Senusret I (r. 1971–1926 BC) explicitly mentions people who will gather and listen to a scribe who "recites" the stela inscriptions out loud. [56]An Egyptian historian, known by his Greek name as Manetho ( c. 3rd century BC), was the first to compile a comprehensive history of Egypt. [174] Manetho was active during the reign of Ptolemy II (r. 283–246 BC) and used The Histories by the Greek Herodotus ( c. 484 BC– c. 425 BC) as his main source of inspiration for a history of Egypt written in Greek. [174] However, the primary sources for Manetho's work were the king list chronicles of previous Egyptian dynasties. [171] Tomb and temple graffiti [ edit ] Artistic graffiti of a canine figure at the Temple of Kom Ombo, built during the Ptolemaic dynasty Semantic reading [ edit ] Comparative evolution from pictograms to abstract shapes, in cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters Poems were also written to celebrate kingship. For example, at the Precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak, Thutmose III (r. 1479–1425 BC) of the Eighteenth dynasty erected a stela commemorating his military victories in which the gods bless Thutmose in poetic verse and ensure for him victories over his enemies. [126] In addition to stone stelas, poems have been found on wooden writing boards used by schoolboys. [127] Besides the glorification of kings, [128] poems were written to honor various deities, and even the Nile. [129] A blind harpist, from a mural of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, 15th century BC