Ancient Egyptian Technology
Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Transliteration
Unicode, EGPZ, XML

About EGPZ.COM

EGPZ.COM was created to encourage the use of standard ways of working with Ancient Egyptian in digital formats. The name comes from a specification for encoding hieroglyphs in Unicode private use areas (EGPZ stands for EGyptian in the (Unicode) Private Zones, see EGPZ 1.0 specifications) but the site is meant to be wider in scope.

Examples of topics we would like to feature here are:

  • Hieroglyph sign lists and catalogues. Various schemes have been used over the years and it would be useful to include the older systems for reference as well as the modern standards such as Unicode where some material is already given.
  • Digital file formats for Ancient Egyptian. Work is underway to include information on Manuel de Codage and the new InScribe XML (INSX) format. Ultimately we would like to see all relevant formats covered here.
  • Algorithmic techniques for working with Ancient Egyptian as text, such as sorting and searching.
  • Data resources for Ancient Egyptian in hieroglyphs. The EGPZ Word List Project is the first of these.
  • Ways of working with styles of hieroglyphic writing such as monumental inscription and use of colour.
  • Techniques for use on software platforms to enable richer treatments of Hieroglyphic texts, including popular systems such as Flash and PDF and new developments such as Google Gears and Microsoft Silverlight.
  • Consistent treatments of Hieratic and Demotic.
  • Archive of relevant publications.
  • Information on use of Egyptian in software products, commercial and non-commercial.

At present some of the material here is about what needs to be done rather than what is available for use so will be of most interest to Software or Web Site Developers and Egyptologists interested in standards for use in the future. For instance information on Unicode and Egyptian relates to work on Egyptian Transliteration and Hieroglyphs in future versions of the Unicode standard (the latest release of which is 5.0).

Contributions are welcome and we are happy to host relevant material in an advertisement-free corner of the web.

Hosting and management is by Saqqara Technology Ltd. (www.saqqara.org).

THOTH, The Scribe of the Gods..

From The Gods of the Egyptians, Budge, E. A. Wallis., London 1904. Vol. I. p. 408.