HITTITE HIEROGLYPHIC WRITING

system of pictographic writing used in the Syrian Hittite states for writing an eastern dialect of the Luwian language (q.v.) chiefly in the period from the 10th to the 8th century BC, after the fall of the Hittite empire. (Earlier Luwian texts written in cuneiform are thought by scholars to be in a central Luwian dialect.) Inscriptions written in Hittite hieroglyphs usually begin in the upper-right-hand corner. Although most of the signs are ideographic, a number of them are phonetic syllabic signs. Hieroglyphic Hittite (or, more precisely, Hieroglyphic Luwian) was substantially deciphered between 1930 and 1935. There appears to be no direct connection between Hittite hieroglyphs and those of Egypt.