Meroitic Hieroglyphs

Meroitic Hieroglyphs is a Unicode block which can be characterized as a formal hieroglyphic. It presents various characters for writing Meroitic Egyptian. Here are the most important facts about this alphabet:

• The Meroitic script is basically an alphabet of 23 symbols used from the II century BC till the V century AC in Nubia and Northern Sudan.
• It has two varieties: hieroglyphic (known from inscriptions on monuments, comes from The Egyptian hieroglyphic writing) and Cursive (from demotic writing).
• The hieroglyphic symbols were written in columns, from top to bottom, from right to left. The more common cursive form was written from right to left, from top to bottom.
• The alphabet was decoded at the beginning of the XX century by Francis Llewellyn Griffith; however, most symbols and meanings still remain unclear
• 4 vowels + 14 consonants + 5 syllables
• Apparently, the Meroitic script was also utilized for writing the Old Nubian language (the ancestor of Meroitic written mostly in Coptic or modified Greek)