demotic

Bearing inscriptions of the same text in Hieroglyphs, Demotic and Ancient Greek, it was used by Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion to decipher Hieroglyphs from 1822, opening up understanding of ancient Egyptian language and culture.

And the three bands of text — classical Greek, hieroglyphs and an Egyptian shorthand called Demotic — were intended to proclaim the monarch’s achievements in multiple tongues to the peoples of the empire.

The deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics was validated by comparing the Demotic, hieroglyphic and ancient Greek texts on the Rosetta stone found in 1799, for example.

Earlier this month Egypt unearthed an ancient burial site replete with at least 17 mummies, clay sarcophagi, animal coffins, and papyrus inscribed with Demotic script.

Government affairs were often conducted in Greek, but also in Demotic, the local everyday language derived from the more formal hieroglyphs.