Ancient Egyptian Technology
Hieroglyphs, Hieratic, Transliteration
Unicode, EGPZ, XML
Hieroglyphs Everywhere (18th June 2007)
Working with Ancient Egyptian in Hieroglyphs is something of a specialist application of modern computer technology. Nevertheless there is no reason in principle why basic support for the hieroglyphic script could not be a part of the everyday resources available on personal computers and gadgets. The reason we can't already easily exchange email or search Google with hieroglyphs is basically down to standards such as Unicode. Large corporations and non-specialists cannot be expected to do much to support work in such a specialist area unless it is made easy to do so.
Early in 2006, an episode of the TV Series 'Lost' featured a number of hieroglyphs. I only learned of this on discovering an unprecedented level of interest in an early draft of the EGPZ specification (10,000 downloads in just over a week!). A solid reminder of the casual interest in hieroglyphs in modern popular culture although what the 'Lost' viewers made of such a dry document is anyone's guess. Coincidentally, this happened at the same time I was drafting an outline on the subject of 'Hieroglyphs Everywhere' for the Informatique et Egyptologie conference held in Oxford in August last year. Aside from TV & Movies, a less frivolous use of hieroglyphs in popular culture is the study of Ancient Egypt by millions of children worldwide every year. Egyptian exhibitions in museums are very popular and Egypt remains a major tourist destination; both stimulating a casual interest in hieroglyphs. The fact of these large numbers of potential casual users of hieroglyphs benefits the academic and amateur Egyptological communities. A large audience encourages support for Ancient Egyptian in a wider software framework than would be possible when looking at a user base of a few thousand people with a specialist interest.
Work already done on the Unicode Standard should, in time, help meet many of the requirements of casual users of hieroglyphs despite being designed to meet the requirements of scholars and others with an interest in the script. There still remains much to be done from the point of view of Egyptology. The Unicode repertoire and methods for working with it need developing to create a level of 'Egyptian as text' support adequate to enable treatments of 3000 years of the written language. Better techniques are required to help work with facsimiles of historical documents and artifacts. Resources on the language and literature ought to be accessible in digital formats.
A topic I hope to return to at a later date. Meanwhile see:
Bob Richmond
Oxford. June 2007.