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8 lines
1.1 KiB
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Meroitic Hieroglyphs is a Unicode block which can be characterized as a formal hieroglyphic. It presents various characters for writing Meroitic Egyptian. Here are the most important facts about this alphabet:
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[*] The Meroitic script is basically an alphabet of 23 symbols used from the II century BC till the V century AC in Nubia and Northern Sudan.
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[*] It has two varieties: hieroglyphic (known from inscriptions on monuments, comes from [BLOCK:meroitic-hieroglyphs the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing]) and [BLOCK:meroitic-cursive cursive] (from demotic writing).
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[*] The hieroglyphic symbols were written in columns, from top to bottom, from right to left. The more common cursive form was written from right to left, from top to bottom.
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[*] The alphabet was decoded at the beginning of the XX century by [i]Francis Llewellyn Griffith[/i]; however, most symbols and meanings still remain unclear
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[*] 4 vowels + 14 consonants + 5 syllables
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[*] Apparently, the Meroitic script was also utilized for writing the Old Nubian language (the ancestor of Meroitic written mostly in [BLOCK:coptic Coptic] or modified Greek) |