Hieratic was a cursive written language developed in ancient Egypt alongside hieroglyphics, used by priests and written using ink on various surfaces. It was more like a language of symbols than pictographs and was often used for medical and religious texts. It eventually developed into a language predominantly used by priests, while a second cursive language called demotic was developed for non-religious documents.
Hieratic is a written language developed in ancient Egypt alongside the pictographic language known as hieroglyphic; both languages share a number of similarities. These two languages were likely developed together, rather than evolved from each other, and the hieratic language is quite cursive in nature, making it quick to use. It was typically written right to left in horizontal lines of text, although a few examples remain where it was written in vertical columns. Hieratic was widely used by priests and was one of two written languages in ancient Egypt; the other language, called “demotic,” developed for use by others.
While hieratic is somewhat similar to hieroglyphic writing in that they are both visual languages, it was written using ink on various surfaces and consisted of symbols more like letters rather than pictographs. Hieroglyphs were created for many different purposes and used pictograms where the symbol of a particular idea was often represented by an image depicting that idea. In contrast, hieratic was developed as a cursive written language, in which the symbols only vaguely resemble what they are meant to indicate. As a cursive language, the letters were designed to connect often to each other to render each word across a few brushstrokes.
Hieratic was typically written using a brush and ink, often on papyrus or cloth, although a few stone tablets with ink writing on them have been found. Papyrus was often used for medical and religious texts, handwritten in horizontal rows and read from right to left. Stone tablets were often used by more ordinary people who may not have had access to papyrus; as such, some remaining tablets provide insight into the daily lives of ordinary people in ancient Egypt. Hieratic written on cloth was often used for wrappings and dressing for mummification, often with blessings or other religious commentary written on them.
While Hieratic was once quite popular with many priests, businessmen, and other leaders in ancient Egypt, it eventually developed into a language predominantly used by priests. The name itself means “priestly language” and was named by Roman observers of Egyptian life. A second cursive language was developed which was similar in some respects, but was more often used by non-priests for written documents and records. This language was called demotic, meaning “language of the people,” and was often used for business documents and government documents that were not religious in nature.
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