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κάλους: H. is right that the Egyptians fastened the ‘sheet’ of their vessels (for these cf. c. 96) inside. Torr (p. 80), however, says the κάλος (Att. κάλως) is a ‘brailing rope’; these ran across the sail from the yard.

γράμματα. Egyptian writing is generally from right to left; but in drawing the individual signs they usually began on the left (cf. αὐτοί φασι ἐπὶ δεξιά). H. is speaking of the direction of the writing as a whole, the natives of the formation of each special letter. He does not mention the older forms of Greek inscriptions, which are from right to left, or βουστροφηδόν, though he must have seen them.

There were really three kinds of Egyptian writing: (1) The hieroglyphic, in which the symbols are still recognizable pictures; this was sometimes from left to right, and sometimes up and down (like Chinese). (2) The hieratic, a shortened form of this; a few symbols remain as before, most become purely conventional. (3) The demotic, which developed still further out of the hieratic, and was known by the Egyptians as ‘the book script’, while the two first were ‘the Gods' script’. The enigmatic, which was invented under the eighteenth dynasty, is only a way of writing hieroglyphs in cipher. H. fails to distinguish between (1) and (2), as he well might.

For Egyptian writing cf. B. M. G. p. 36 seq., where an interesting account of the decipherment (pp. 41 f.) is given, with a picture of the famous Rosetta Stone.

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