Editing Hieratic (section)

==Characteristics==
[[File:Scribe's exercise tablet 1.jpg|right|thumb|An exercise tablet with a hieratic excerpt from ''[[Instructions of Amenemhat|The Instructions of Amenemhat]]'' (dated to the [[Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt|eighteenth dynasty]] reign of [[Amenhotep I]], {{nowrap|{{circa|1514}}–1493 BC}}) reads: "Be on your guard against all who are subordinate to you... Trust no brother, know no friend, make no intimates."]]
Hieratic script, unlike inscriptional and [[manuscript hieroglyphs]], reads from right to left. Initially, hieratic could be written in either columns or horizontal lines, but after the [[Twelfth dynasty of Egypt|twelfth dynasty]] (specifically during the reign of [[Amenemhat III]]), horizontal writing became the standard.

Hieratic is noted for its cursive nature and use of [[Ligature (palaeography)|ligatures]] for a number of characters. Hieratic script also uses a much more standardized [[orthography]] than hieroglyphs; texts written in the latter often had to take into account extra-textual concerns, such as decorative uses and religious concerns that were not present in, say, a tax receipt. There are also some signs that are unique to hieratic, although [[Egyptologist]]s have invented equivalent hieroglyphic forms for hieroglyphic transcriptions and typesetting.{{sfn|Gardiner|1929}} Several hieratic characters have diacritical additions so that similar signs could easily be distinguished.

Hieratic is often present in any given period in two forms, a highly ligatured, cursive script used for administrative documents, and a broad [[uncial]] [[bookhand]] used for literary, scientific, and religious texts. These two forms can often be significantly different from one another. Letters, in particular, used very cursive forms for quick writing, often with large numbers of abbreviations for formulaic phrases, similar to [[shorthand]].

A highly cursive form of hieratic known as "Abnormal Hieratic" was used in the [[Thebes, Egypt|Theban]] area from the second half of the [[Twentieth dynasty of Egypt|twentieth dynasty]] until the beginning of the [[Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt|twenty-sixth dynasty]].{{sfn|Wente|2001|p=210}}{{sfn|Malinine|1974}} It derives from the script of Upper Egyptian administrative documents and was used primarily for legal texts, land leases, letters, and other texts. This type of writing was superseded by Demotic—a Lower Egyptian scribal tradition—during the twenty-sixth dynasty, when Demotic was established as a standard administrative script throughout a re-unified Egypt.