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The remote antiquity of hieroglyphical writing may be inferred from the fact that it must have existed before the use of the solar month in Egypt,—“which,” says Gliddon, “astronomical observations on Egyptian records prove to have been in use at an epoch close up to the Septuagint era of the Flood.” From Egyptian annals we may glean some faint confirmation of the view that they either possessed the primeval alphabet, or else they rediscovered its equivalent from the mystic functions and attributes of the “two Thoths,”—the first and second Hermes, both Egyptian mythological personages, deified as attributes of the Godhead.

To “Thoth,” Mercury, or the first Hermes, the Egyptians ascribed the invention of letters.

The first attempts of “picture-writing” were to imitate certain images, each representing a word or letter. Drawing, therefore, was the most natural medium; and the study of representing things pictorially became popular and the only mode of communication.

The true origin of alphabetical writing has never been traced; but that of the Egyptians has been proved by the Comte de Caylus to be formed, as stated above, of hieroglyphical marks, adopted with no great variations. “We find,” says Warburton, “no appearance of alphabetical writing or characters on their public monuments.”

This, however true at the time he wrote, cannot now be asserted; since the celebrated Rosetta stone, in the British Museum, is engraved with three distinct sets of characters,—Greek, Egyptian, and a third resembling what are called hieroglyphics. The only doubt that can be entertained is, whether these are strictly hieroglyphics,—that is, representations of things,—or rather an alphabetical character peculiar to the priesthood, and called hierogrammatics. 1. The existence of this sacred alphabet is attested by Herodotus, Diodorus, and several other writers. 2. It went occasionally under the name of hieroglyphic, as appears not only by the passage quoted above from Manetho, if we do not alter the text, but from one in Porphyry, which may be found in Warburton. 3. It was, however, considered as perfectly distinct from the genuine hieroglyphic, which was always understood to denote things, either by mere picture-writing, or, more commonly, by very refined allegory. 4. Works of a popular and civil nature were written in this character, as we learn from Clement of Alexandria; whereas the genuine hieroglyphic was exceedingly secret and mysterious, and the knowledge of it confined to the priesthood. 5. The inscription upon the Rosetta stone is said, in the terms of the decree contained in it, to be written in the sacred, national, and Greek characters. 6. It could not be a mysterious character, such as the genuine hieroglyphic seems to have been, because it was exposed to public view with a double translation. 7. It occupies a considerable space upon the stone, although an indefinite part of it is broken off; although the real hieroglyphic, as is natural to emblematic writing, appears to have been exceedingly compendious. 8. The characters do not appear to be very numerous, as they recur in various combinations of three, four, or more, as might be expected from the letters of an alphabet. But this argument we do not strongly press, because our examination has not been very long. It appears to hold out a decisive test, and we offer it as such to the ingenuity of antiquaries.

Upon these grounds we think that the characters upon the Rosetta stone, which are commonly denominated hieroglyphics, are in fact the original alphabetic characters of the Egyptians, from which the others have probably been derived by a gradual corruption through haste in writing. They are, however, in one sense, hieroglyphics, being tolerably accurate delineations of men, animals, and instruments. If we are right in our conjectures, the value of the Rosetta stone is incomparably greater than has been imagined. We have no need of hieroglyphics: Roman and Egyptian monuments are full of them. But a primitive alphabet, probably the earliest ever formed in the world, and illustrating an important link in the history of writing,—the adaptation of signs to words,—is certainly a discovery very interesting to any philosophical mind. Through what steps the analysis of articulate sound into its constituent parts was completed—if we can say that it ever has been completed—so as to establish distinct marks for each of them, and whether these marks were taken at random, or from some supposed analogy between the simple sounds they were brought to represent and their primary hieroglyphical meaning, are questions which stand in need of solution.12

The Rosetta stone is the only one yet discovered, being no doubt the pioneer to many more that may yet be unearthed. The importance of this stone—its inscription indicating the probability of its supplying a key to the deciphering of the long-lost meanings of Egyptian hieroglyphics—“was immediately,” says Gliddon, in his Lectures on Ancient Egypt, “perceived by the learned, who in vain endeavored to trace the analogy between symbolical and alphabetical writing. Its arrival in London excited the liveliest interest in all those who had devoted themselves to Egyptian archæology; and the attention of the greatest scholars of the age was directed to its critical investigation.” (See Gliddon’s work on Ancient Egypt.)

Any one who will examine the hieroglyphical alphabet closely will discover a most extraordinary coincidence in that of the symbolical writing of our North American Indians, specimens of which are in the museum at Washington City. A war despatch, giving an account of one of their expeditions, has the same emblematical figures as has that of the Egyptians as used 1550 B.C.

There are also among other tribes many remarkable similarities, and analogous with Egyptian symbolical writings, which strengthen the supposition that the Indians of North America are one of the lost tribes of Israel. Nor is it alone the mere words which these signs and figures convey, but certain traits of character in their habits and customs as compared with the ancients.—(See Isaiah xi. 11-15.)

The Indians have a tradition among them to this effect: “that nine parts of their nation out of ten passed over a great river.” They also have traditions of the “Flood,” “a good book,” “Tower of Babel,” “dispersion of the Jews,” and the “confounding of language.” It is related by Father Charlevoix, the French historian, that the Hurons and Iroquois in their early day had a tradition among them that the first woman came from heaven and had twins, and that the elder killed the younger. In 1641 an old Indian woman stated that this tradition among her tribe was that the Great Spirit had killed his brother. This is evidently a confusion of the story of Cain and Abel. Still, the tradition is remarkable from the fact that this, as well as the others alluded to, existed long before the discovery of this continent.

The Ottawas say that there are two great beings who rule and govern the universe, and who are at war with each other. The one they call “Mameto,” the other “Matchemaneto.” There is a wonderful, or rather, we should say, a remarkable, resemblance between the language of the Creek Indians with that of the ancient Hebrew; for instance: “Y He Howa” means Jehovah; “Halleluwah,” hallelujah; “Abba,” in Creek, has the same meaning as “Abba” in Hebrew; “Kesh,” kesh; “Abe,” Abel; “Kenaaj,” Canaan; “Awah,” Eve, or Eweh; “Korah,” Cora; “Jennois,” Jannon, both literally meaning, “He shall be called a son.” There is more in these similarities than can be attributed to mere chance.

Any one at all familiar with hieroglyphical writing need only to examine the Indian characters upon buffalo and other skins received in trade from the Indians to trace, as it were, a distinct line from that most ancient school of designing figures to suit expression and language, down to these tribes, who may well be called the descendants of the “remnant of” God’s people, who were scattered over the lands of Egypt and the “islands of the sea,” in the time of Isaiah.

In the Ambrosian Library at Milan there are to be seen Mexican hieroglyphics, painted in Mexico upon buck-leather, and were presented to the Emperor Charles V. by Ferdinand Cortez. These hieroglyphics are now as little understood as are those of Egypt, although both are now gradually yielding to the mind’s influence in their development. Impressions of these were taken on copper from fac-similes in the possession of Humboldt.

Perhaps the first real step made into the hieroglyphical arcana may be dated from 1797, when the learned Dane, George Zoega, published at Rome his folio “De Origine et Usa Obeliscorum,” explanatory of the Egyptian Obelisks.—(G. R. Gliddon.)