Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt is a primer on Egyptian hieroglyphics by Maria Carmela Betrò, later professor for Egyptology at Pisa University (published in Italian as "Geroglifici" in 1995; English translation 1996). The standard version of analytic Egyptian hieroglyphs is based upon the 26 categories of the Gardiner's Sign List, (about 700 signs). That categorization is still the basic standard. The approach in "Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt" is to use some of the Gardiner sign categories, to focus on specific major-use signs. The end of a thematic chapter then has synoptic
Rosetta Stone later Coptic script. French Orientalist Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy had been discussing this work with Åkerblad when he received one of the early lithographic prints of the Rosetta Stone in 1801 from Jean-Antoine Chaptal, French minister of the interior. He realised that the middle text was in this same script. He and Åkerblad set to work, both focusing on the middle text and assuming that the script was alphabetical. They attempted to identify the points where Greek names ought to occur within this unknown text, by comparing it with the Greek. In 1802, Silvestre de Sacy reported to Chaptal that