A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?
Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.
—-Walt Whitman
noun
- a hieroglyphic symbol.
- hieroglyphic writhing.
- a figure or symbol with a hidden meaning.
- hieroglyphics, handwriting, figures, characters, code, etc…difficult to dicipher: the confusing hieroglyphics of advanced mathematics.
Hieroglyphic writing is the basis of the two other writings. It owes its name to the fact that when the Greeks arrived in Egypt, this writing was mainly used for ‘sacred (Greek hieros) inscriptions (Greek glypho)’ on temple walls or on public monuments.
Hieroglyphic writing uses clearly distinguishable pictures to express both sounds and ideas and was used from the end of the Prehistory until396 AD , when the last hieroglyphic text was written on the walls of the temple of Isis on the island of Philae. It was used in monumental inscriptions on walls of temples and tombs, but also on furniture, sarcophagi and coffins, and even on papyrus. It could either be inscribed or drawn and often the signs would be painted in many colours. The quality of the writing would vary from highly detailed signs to mere outlines.
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i always knew what hieroglyphics were but for some who didn’t this was an excellent way to find out! i like the pictures that go with it also!