Monday 27 February 2017

Irregular Hieroglyph clusters

I am compiling a document on irregular Egyptian Hieroglyph clusters (aka quadrats) and would like to hear of any publications relating to this topic. Documenting what is required is an essential precursor to expanding the capability of Unicode plain text orthography beyond regular cluster support.

Examples in this blog post are all taken from the 18th Dynasty Tomb of Rekhmire (TT100).

Here are some examples of the regular clusters that account for the vast majority of writing from ancient sources:

In addition to these simple grid-like arrangements, there are various conventional forms of cluster such as:
The majority of these conventional clusters follow the bird and cobra patterns of non-grid arrangement.

Irregular clusters can be seen when the scribe/artist attempts to squeeze more hieroglyphs into the available space, avoid empty space, or achieve some special visual effect.
In many cases in Unicode text it is satisfactory to transcribe irregular clusters into an equivalent more regular form as has often been done in established practice. For instance the first irregular form in the illustration could be written in traditional MdC as (a:t)*H-A28 with no great significance for transcription purposes. Likewise the last example can use t:t:W10 ignoring the slope.

The goal of future developments of the Unicode writing system is to enable rendering of clusters inherent to the writing system. This principle can only be made precise on the basis of well-attested data about irregular clusters in order to be crystal clear what is to be accomplished, Not all arrangements of hieroglyphs discovered in ancient writings are inherent and count as plain text. Through detailed illustration it should be possible to reach a consensus among Egyptologists that an extended Unicode system meets the needs of the subject.

In the near future I hope to produce draft documentation for comment. Meanwhile I'm interested in hearing of any relevant work that has been done already on hieroglyphic orthography and any examples of irregular quadrats that may be relevant.

Thanks
Bob Richmond

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