enchorial

There was another language used by the ancient Egyptians, and expressed in what is called the demotic or enchorial character.

Rosetta-stone, rō-zet′a-stōn, n. a slab of black basalt found at Rosetta in Egypt in 1799, having inscribed upon it, in hieroglyphics, demotic or enchorial, and Greek, a decree in honour of Ptolemy V.—the first clue to the decipherment of hieroglyphics.

The latter part of the Greek inscription was very much injured, but was restored by the conjectures of Porson and Heyne, and read as follows:—"������ is here decreed shall be inscribed on a block of hard stone, in sacred, in enchorial, and in Greek characters, and placed in each temple, of the first, second, and third gods."

The stone bore an inscription in three different kinds of character—the Hieroglyphic, the Enchorial or Demotic, and the ordinary Greek.

Another mode of cursive writing used by the people and employed in law, literature, and secular matters, is known as demotic or enchorial.