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 is now used in other contexts as the name for the essential clue to a new field of knowledge. The Rosetta Stone is listed as "a stone of black granodiorite, bearing three inscriptions ... found at Rosetta" in a contemporary catalogue of the artefacts discovered by the French expedition and surrendered to British troops in 1801. At some period after its arrival in London, the inscriptions on the stone were coloured in white chalk to make them more legible, and the remaining surface was covered with a layer of carnauba wax designed to protect the Rosetta Stone from visitors' fingers.