The Unicode Consortium has released a revised draft of standards for encoding Egyptian hieroglyphics, meaning that they may soon be available to use on mobile phones, computers, and other digital devices. The proposal explains how Egyptian hieroglyphs evolved from a set of just over 700 characters during most of the classical period (which encompasses the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom), to a repertoire of over 7000 characters during the Graeco-Roman period. The larger set, it states, is generally known as ‘Ptolemaic’, despite the fact that many of the extensions were in use during the classical period as well. In addition, the increase in characters was accompanied by an growth in the phonetic values ascribed to a single glyph, which could exceed 20 readings. The intention, the proposal states, is to “set the base for the encoding of the extended set, allowing Egyptologists to communicate data in a unified encoding platform.” Then, each element of the set can be indexed in a database where addition information relating to the sound, semantic, sources, description etc, can be conveyed. Reporting on the matter, Hyperallergic states that it is “part of a larger effort…
