A section of the Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs.

Cursive hieroglyphs are a variety of Egyptian hieroglyphs commonly used for relgious documents written on papyrus, such as the Book of the Dead. It was particularly common during the Ramesside Period and many famous documents, such as the Papyrus of Ani, utilize it. It was also employed on wood for religious literature such as the Coffin Texts. The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus from the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt containing portions of the Book of Going Forth by Day, more commonly known as the Books of the Dead. ... Hieroglyphs are a system of writing used by the Ancient Egyptians, using a combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements. ... Papyrus plant Cyperus papyrus at Kew Gardens, London Papyrus is an early form of paper made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that grows to 5 meters (15 ft) in height and was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt. ... This article is about the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. ... The Ramesside Period encompasses the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties of Ancient Egypt. ... The Papyrus of Ani is a papyrus from the 19th dynasty of the New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt containing portions of the Book of Going Forth by Day, more commonly known as the Books of the Dead. ... The Coffin Text, which basically superseded the Pyramid Texts as magical funerary spells at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, are principally a Middle Kingdom phenomenon, though we have found examples as early as the late Old Kingdom. ...

Cursive hieroglyphs should not be confused with hieratic. Hieratic is much more cursive, having large numbers of ligatures and signs unique only to hieratic. However, there is, as might be expected, a certain degree of influence from hieratic in the visual appearance of some signs. One significant difference is that the orientation of cursive hieroglyphs is variable, reading right to left or left to right depending on the context, whereas hieratic is always read right to left.^[1] Development of hieratic script from hieroglyphs; after Champollion. ...

Notes

1. ^ Davies 1990:93

References

• Cruz-Uribe, Eugene. 2001. "Scripts: An Overview." In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, edited by Donald B. Redford. Vol. 3. Oxford, New York, and Cairo: Oxford University Press and The American University in Cairo Press. 192–198 [194–195].

• Davies, William Vivian. 1990. "Egyptian Hieroglyphs". In Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet. London: British Museum Press. 74–135.