View source for Hieratic

==Uses and materials==
[[File:Heratic script limestone.jpg|right|thumb|One of four official letters to [[Vizier (Ancient Egypt)|vizier]] Khay copied onto fragments of limestone, an [[ostracon]], held at the [[Royal Ontario Museum]]]]
Through most of its long history, hieratic was used for writing administrative documents, accounts, legal texts, and letters, as well as mathematical, medical, literary, and religious texts. During the Greco-Roman period, when Demotic, and later, [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], had become the chief administrative script, hieratic was limited primarily to religious texts. In general, hieratic was much more important than hieroglyphs throughout Egypt's history, being the script used in daily life. It was also the writing system first taught to students, knowledge of hieroglyphs being limited to a small minority who were given additional training.{{sfn|Baines|1983|p=583}} It is often possible to detect errors in hieroglyphic texts that came about due to a misunderstanding of an original hieratic text.

Most often, hieratic script was written in [[ink]] with a [[Phragmites|reed]] [[brush]] on [[papyrus]], wood, stone, or pottery [[ostracon|ostraca]]. During the Roman period, reed [[pen]]s (''calami'') were also used. Thousands of limestone ostraca have been found at the site of [[Deir al-Madinah]], revealing an intimate picture of the lives of common Egyptian workers. Besides papyrus, stone, ceramic shards, and wood, there are hieratic texts on leather rolls, although few have survived. There are also hieratic texts written on cloth, especially on linen used in [[Mummy|mummification]]. There are some hieratic texts inscribed on stone, a variety known as lapidary hieratic. These are particularly common on [[stela]]e from the [[Twenty-second dynasty of Egypt|twenty-second dynasty]].

During the late [[Sixth dynasty of Egypt|sixth dynasty]], hieratic was sometimes incised into mud tablets with a [[stylus]], similar to [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]]. About five hundred of these tablets have been discovered in the governor's palace at Ayn Asil (Balat),{{sfn|Soukiassian|Wuttmann|Pantalacci|2002}} and a single example was discovered from the site of Ayn al-Gazzarin, both in the [[Dakhla Oasis]].{{sfn|Posener-Kriéger|1992}}{{sfn|Pantalacci|1998}}<ref>[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/calendar/articles/20120514 Scribes and craftsmen: the noble art of writing on clay.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160529113814/http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/calendar/articles/20120514/ |date=2016-05-29 }} Feb 29, 2012; UCL Institute of Archaeology</ref> At the time the tablets were made, Dakhla was located far from centers of [[papyrus]] production.{{sfn|Parkinson|Quirke|1995|p=20}} These tablets record inventories, name lists, accounts, and approximately fifty letters. Of the letters, many are internal letters that were circulated within the palace and the local settlement, but others were sent from other villages in the oasis to the governor.