- What's this site for?
- How do I use it?
- What's a tag?
- What's a "tag cloud"?
- Can I search for stuff by typing keywords in somewhere?
- What are these links at the top of my results?
- What's this list of tags at the right of my results for?
- Can I add a tag to this glyph I've found?
- What the ... WHERE ARE THE MEANINGS FOR THIS GLYPH?!??
- When will you finish adding the meanings for the glyphs?
- Where'd you get the glyphs?
- Isn't that a violation of copyright?
- How many glyphs are there in the database?
- Is this a comprehensive list of hieroglyphs?
- Where'd you get the transliteration font?
- Can I copy and paste the transliterations?
- How'd you embed the font in your web page?
- Whats the other font, the one you used for the headings at the top of menus and pages?
- Who's responsible for this madness?
- I found an error or ran into a problem using the site. How can I contact you?
- Can I link to pages of search results?
- Can I use the glyph images for something?
- Question 1: What's this site for?
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This is a reference site for students of the ancient Egyptian language. It lets you identify an unfamiliar hieroglyph by browsing tags that describe what the hieroglyph looks like.
If you're NOT a student of hieroglyphs, you're welcome to browse the glyphs anyway. Some of them are quite pretty.
- Question 2: How do I use it?
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Click "Browse Tag Cloud" to view a list of all the tags in the database. Pick a tag and click it. That'll show you all the glyphs that the tag describes. You can refine your results by adding another tag using the list at the right of the results page.
- Question 3: What's a tag?
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A tag is a very brief description of a particular thing. In this case, the "things" are pictures of hieroglyphs, and the tags describe what they look like or depict. Any glyph can have multiple tags, meaning that we can tag it as everything it might be instead of just one thing you or I think it is.
- Question 4: What's a tag cloud?
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A tag cloud is a list of all the tags in the database. It's organized in alphabetical order. But instead of just displaying it as a list, the tags are shown all on one line. The line wraps. Finally, the size of the text for each tag is adjusted based on how common that tag is. That is, common tags get big text because they're used frequently. Rare tags get smaller text because they're less common. The end result is a "cloud" of tags which shows you how common or rare the tags are in relation to one another.
A tag cloud can also be called a "folksonomy" (that's a "taxonomy by folks"). But only über geeks call it that. You may have seen them in use on Flickr and other sites that organize stuff by tagging it.
If a plain old list is more your style, try the "Browse Tag List" link, which will give you a plain old alphabetical list of tags, each one followed by a number showing how many times it's been used.
- Question 5: Can I search for stuff by typing keywords in somewhere?
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We don't currently have a search engine, sorry.
If you'd like to try guessing at tags, you can type in a web address like this:
http://glyphics.info/tag/foo/bar/once_againThe first part of the URL (http://glyphics.info/tag) needs to stay the same, but you can append up to nine tags after it by using /tag_name. letters and numbers are okay, if you need a space use an underscore. It's usually easier to navigate using the tag cloud and adding tags to your search results, because that way there's no possibility that you'll ask for a tag that doesn't exist. (Don't worry about that, though - if you guess a tag and get it wrong, the site will just discard that tag!)
- Question 6: What are these links at the top of my results?
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You mean these?
You have browsed: abstract [X] > circle [X] > box [X]
Those are called "breadcrumbs", after Hansel & Gretel. They show a trail marking how you got where you are. You can go back to any point in your search by clicking a tag name. Also, if you decide you want to remove any one tag, you can do that by clicking the "X" link to delete it.
- Question 7: What's this list of tags at the right of my results for?
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On any search results screen you'll have a list of all the other tags connected to all the glyphs in your results. You can add any tag from that list to your search by clicking on it.
- Question 8: Can I add a tag to this glyph I've found?
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Yes, please! The more people tag the glyphs, the easier they'll be to find. There's a little text box at the right of every glyph page labeled "Add your own tags". Just type in the tags that you want to add. Spaces are fine; if you have multiple tags to add, separate them with commas.
- Question 9: What the ... WHERE ARE THE MEANINGS FOR THIS GLYPH?!??
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Yes, I know. Not all of the glyphs have meanings in the database. I'm working on it, really! So far, I've only entered meanings for the first 78 glyphs out of 728.
- Question 10: When will you finish adding the meanings for the glyphs?
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As soon as I can. It takes a while to add each glyph. Today is November 26th 2007; I hope to finish adding all the glyphs by the end of January.
- Question 11: Where'd you get the glyphs?
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They all come from
Mercer, Samuel Alfred Browne. An Egyptian Grammar with Chrestomathy and Glossary. London: Luzac, 1927.
- Question 12: Isn't that a violation of copyright?
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Short answer: no, it's in the public domain. Probably.
Longer answer: Possibly. It's hard to tell.
The book was:
- Printed in Austria;
- Published in London (For Luzac & Co., in 1927);
- Written in Toronto by S. A. B. Mercer, who was a Canadian national.
According to the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, Mercer never registered a copyright for this book in the United States (which is where I am). At the time this book was published, the law required that authors complete formal registration in order to receive copyright protection. The fact that he did not do so means that the book is in the public domain.
But. As of March 1st 1989, registration is no longer necessary to receive copyright protection, and then in 1998 copyright was extended by the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act retroactively to all works published after January 1st 1923. Of course, I don't think this book was actually published in the United States before 1984 (when a facsimile edition was published without copyright notice by Ares Publishers of Chicago). So, although it was definitely in the public domain in the United States prior to 1989, it may be retroactively copyrighted now.
There's also the possibility, which I have not investigated in great depth, that this book is still under copyright in the United Kingdom, and that it might therefore be subject to international copyright protections under the terms of the Berne Convention.
However, I don't really know. It was quite definitely public domain in the past, and the Cornell Copyright Term Chart says it probably still is. So I'm going to conclude that it is. If you disagree, and you're the copyright holder, and can prove it, and object to my use of the glyphs, please get in touch.
- Question 13: How many glyphs are there in the database?
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728.
- Question 14: Is this a comprehensive list of hieroglyphs?
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Ha! No. There are way more than that; this is just a selection of common ones from an introductory level grammar textbook.
- Question 15: Where'd you get the transliteration font?
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From the now-defunct Centre for Computer-Aided Egyptological Research. You can download a copy of the transliteration font from yare.org's archive.
- Question 16: Can I copy and paste the transliterations?
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Yes! The transliteration font can be selected and copied. It's actually a Flash movie, though, so if you start selecting outside the bounds of the particular Flash movie you're interested in, it won't actually get highlighted. You'll still be able to copy and paste it, but you won't see the highlighting.
Also, when you paste it, it'll be in regular characters, not transliterated characters. You can download the font (see previous question) and use it on your system to get the transliteration characters.
- Question 17: How'd you embed the font in your web page?
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Originally, I used scalable Inman Flash Replacement (sIFR). Then time passed, and support for web fonts using @font-face finally became widespread enough to switch to that, which works better.
- Question 18: Whats the other font, the one you used for the headings at the top of menus and pages?
- Question 19: Who's responsible for this madness?
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Hi! I'm Will Martin, currently a graduate student at the University of Texas in Austin.
- Question 20: I found an error or ran into a problem using the site. How can I contact you?
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Click the "Contact" link in the main menu and go to it.
- Question 21: Can I link to pages of search results?
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Yes. Just copy the location as normal. All the URLs on this site are stable.
- Question 22: Can I use the glyph images for something?
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No skin off my nose; knock yourself out. But do read Question 12.