Ancient writing.
A shared contribution.

JSesh & JSeshJs

Serge Rosmorduc and the JSesh contributors

Scribe uses the official JSeshJs 0.2.0 browser library to parse Manuel de Codage, arrange hieroglyphs, and power visual editing and rendering. The bundled library is unmodified.

JSesh’s repository credits Serge Rosmorduc for most of the code and Wayne Collins for CVS and Ant improvements. The code is distributed under CeCILL-C; files carrying other license notices retain their stated terms.

Thousands of signs, drawn with care.

Serge Jean-Paul Thomas · Serge Rosmorduc

Most JSesh glyphs were drawn by Serge Jean-Paul Thomas. His terms permit their distribution with JSesh and use through JSesh as a library, including in publications. They also restrict use in other hieroglyphic word processors. Scribe renders these glyphs through the JSesh library.

The signs drawn by Serge Rosmorduc are distributed under the SIL Open Font License, as described in JSesh’s font notice. Individual source files may carry additional author and license details.

The knowledge behind the palette.

Serge Rosmorduc and the JSesh contributors

The palette uses the sign information supplied with JSeshJs, including families, phonetic values, tags, and variants. JSesh’s source sign-description file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Scribe distributes the release’s sign data unchanged.

A typeface for every part of the page.

Learning section typography

Individual Unicode hieroglyphs in the grammar lessons use Noto Sans Egyptian Hieroglyphs, licensed under the SIL Open Font License.

Dictionary of Middle Egyptian

Paul Dickson · Original entry data by Mark Vygus

Dictionary of Middle Egyptian in Gardiner Classification Order, 1 December 2006. Paul Dickson’s introduction credits the original definitions, transliterations, and glyph sequences to Mark Vygus, obtained via Luca Brigatti, and identifies Faulkner’s dictionary and other sources as the basis of the word lists. Dickson converted and organized the material using JSesh 2.3 and OpenOffice.org 2.0.

Scribe’s 11,794-entry searchable transcription is distributed under the source’s Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license. Attribution, noncommercial use, and share-alike terms apply to this adapted dictionary data.

The adaptation normalizes whitespace and recognized sign-code capitalization, preserves alternate spellings, readings, uncertainty marks and page references, and reconstructs linear MdC from printed sign codes. Original stacking is not retained. Unavailable glyphs are flagged. The source author describes the edition as unfinished and notes missing signs and layout errors.

Faulkner, with the original spellings.

A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond O. Faulkner, modernized by Boris Jegorović (2017). Source: the user-supplied PJ1425.F3-3.pdf. The source states © Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1962. All rights reserved. This source retains its own copyright notice and is not included in the Dickson collection’s CC BY-NC-SA licence.

The main dictionary and its “Reading unknown or doubtful” section are indexed as separate entries. The rare-sign appendix and the English index are not counted as additional words. Searchable headwords and bold glosses are extracted from the document; cross-references retain available text. Consult each original entry excerpt for complete meanings, uncertainty marks, examples and bibliographic references.

The source’s hieroglyphs are drawings. They are shown as cropped page images, preserving the printed arrangement, without guessing Gardiner codes. English and transliteration search work for these entries; sign-code search, selection lookup and editor insertion use the encoded Dickson collection and royal-name encodings. Uncertain source readings remain uncertain. Conventional pronunciation labels are applied only to reviewed senses.

Browse Faulkner entries → · Extraction report

Transliteration & conventional pronunciation

Scribe displays traditional Egyptological characters alongside the dictionary’s original MdC transliteration. It uses ꜣ / A, ꜥ / a, ḥ / H, ḫ / x, ẖ / X, š / S, ṯ / T, ḏ / D and j / i. Input also accepts ỉ and J for i. Hyphens, spaces, and word dots can be omitted in reading searches. H and h, A and a, and x and X remain distinct unless you select Ignore sound case.

Conventional pronunciations are familiar modern names, not recovered ancient vowels or automatic translations. The original reading catalogue includes 32 reviewed words and names, including Nefer, Hotep, Ka, Ba, Akh, Djed, Was, Maat, Kemet, Pharaoh, 20 deity names, and the Tutankhamun example. Variants include Hetep, Re, Set, Tefnet, Ma’at, Amon, Amen, and Tutankhamen. Received names such as Isis and Osiris include conventional English or Greek forms; they are not literal vowel insertions into the Egyptian transliteration. Labels are attached to reviewed entry senses, not every word with the same consonants. Explore the catalogue in the dictionary →

Expanded reading references: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Art of Ancient Egypt (glossary and text); UCL Digital Egypt: amulets, nefer; The Met: offering table (hetep); Harvard Digital Giza: Hetep / Hotep; Global Egyptian Museum: Was-sceptre; Rijksmuseum van Oudheden: Kemet. Harvard Digital Giza also records the Hotep / Hetep spelling variant. Deity names are linked to the dictionary’s printed identifications, with their page references preserved. View the reviewed alias catalogue.

The earlier illustrative Tutankhamun spelling has been replaced with Tutankhamon birth-name variant S3 with its exact MdC: M17-Y5:N35-X1&G43&X1-S34. Its references are CG, 42091 and von Beckerath, p. 145, #E3. It remains separate from the 11,794 Dickson source entries.

References: JSesh: introduction to transliteration; Amy King: Egyptian hieroglyph transliteration; Egypt Exploration Society: Tutankhamun. Traditional display and search aliases are Scribe additions; source dictionary data and attribution are retained.

Royal names, within Scribe.

Browse, compare and use Egyptian royal names directly in Scribe. The collection contains 448 people across 33 dynasty sections, with 2,763 Manuel de Codage variants in 372 encoded records. The remaining 76 listings have no encoding; no spelling is generated for them.

Transcription credits: Marc Mateos Comaposada (MMC), José Barroso Sánchez (JBS), and Anca Peterfi (ANC). Each variant retains its identifier, bibliographical citations, transcriber initials, readings and uncertainty marks. References include Jürgen von Beckerath’s Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen and the works abbreviated JP and Urk in individual records. Open “References & transcription notes” beneath a spelling to read its citations.

The MdC signs and grouping are preserved. Width adjustments of magnitude 2 have been removed from 17 variants; each affected entry includes an editorial note. JSesh supports previews and insertion for 2,238 variants. The other 525 retain their codes and references with a clear rendering limitation. For 65 variants, only sign-code letter case is adjusted for the preview; copying MdC retains the displayed spelling. Encodings may omit royal titles or cartouche enclosures. Unsupported signs are never replaced with generated phonetic spellings.

Records were checked on 4 November 2026. Scribe provides its own interface, JSesh-rendered previews and explanatory text. Transcription copyright: © Marc Mateos Comaposada, 2020–2026. The royal records are separate from the Dickson collection and its Creative Commons terms.

Explore Royal names → · Record and rendering checks

Built on open work.

Scribe is an independent interface. It is not an official JSesh product, and crediting these projects does not imply endorsement. The licenses above apply to their respective components; they are not a single license for the entire site.