At a very early time in history, and extending up to its gradual abandonment in Greco-Roman times, the hieroglyphic system combined ideographic and phonetic codes. This complex approach allowed Egyptians to transcribe not only their language but also their iconic perception of reality. In two books, Jean Winand, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Liège, gives us a panoramic vision of Egypt through an examination of the evolution of one of humanity’s most ancient writing systems. Professor Winand places hieroglyphic writing in a historical perspective, searches out its origins, functioning, its constraints, richness and its limits, as well as its reception in Western cultures and the role it played in the origin of other writing systems. He concludes by presenting a surprising historical itinerary that leads up to our own alphabet.

Hieroglyphs have fascinated the West for more than 2000 years, except for a relative lack of interest during the Middle Ages. Interest in them picked up again during the Renaissance, and they still attract a great deal of attention from the feverish dreamers of esotericism and occultism, and also from experienced scientists who study them assiduously. On this second path, we find Professor of Egyptology Jean Winand, the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Liège, and it is upon that path that he has produced two books that are now available to the public (1). As the reader turns the pages, they reveal the complexity of hieroglyphs subject to hybridation, during 3000 years of history of a people whose culture was closely bound up with their writings. Over and above the many modifications to which the hieroglyphic system was subjected over time, it also coexisted with other systems that are in fact simplified versions of it: first there is the hieratic system, and then there is the demotic. A complex reality, therefore, one rich in nuances, which the Egyptologist capably grasps.

Over and above the myth, a late rehabilitation

Hieroglyphs have suffered for a long time from a succession of clichés that separated them from the functional and historical reality they represent. Jean Winand illustrates this fact in a chapter of his book “Les hiéroglyphes égyptiens”, devoted to the reception of hieroglyphs in the West. “One must realize,” he says, “that generations of thinkers, from the Renaissance to the end of the 18^th century, became stuck in what was said by a few Greek and Roman authors who went to Egypt between the fifth century BCE and the second century of our era. These visitors conducted superficial research and did not have access to all the different forms of writing. All they observed were monumental writings, inscribed upon the most recent temples.”

During that period, Egypt was in political decline. A millennial empire was breathing its last breath. The meticulous art of hieroglyphic writing was disappearing for want of people who were able to read hieroglyphs. “It is estimated that at that time there were only 100 people (called hierogrammates) who knew how to read and write hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic texts concerned only a few people who were connected with temples, where no visitor could enter. Some inscriptions were made seven or 8 meters above the floor in dark and narrow corridors where one could not back up in order to see the inscriptions better. These inscriptions were never intended to be read. They were not made to communicate with human beings. They were a vehicle for theology, addressed directly to the divine.”

Hieroglyphic writing began to become indecipherable. The possible meanings of signs were multiplied in an attempt to reveal new aspects of the divinities. Writing played with the sacred, cultivated ambiguity and adopted an allusive form. From allusion to symbolism, the distance is not far. In the somewhat imaginative view of the West, sometimes in search of the exotic, all Egyptian writing was assumed to have a symbolic function. “Some thinkers went as far as to frame the hypothesis that once the mechanisms of the system were understood, all of us would be able to read hieroglyphs in our own languages. They never imagined that hieroglyphs were the transcription of a particular language, namely Egyptian.” 

(1)  Jean Winand, Les Hiéroglyphes Egyptiens, Presses Universitaires de Frances, collection Que sais-je ?, Paris, 2013, and Jean Winand, Les origines de l’écriture, L’Académie en poche de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, following a conference pronounced in the Spring of 2013 at the Collège Belgique. A third work, also published by L’Académie en poche and devoted to the reception of hieroglyphs from the Renaissance up to modern times, will appear in the spring of 2014.