Anatolian hieroglyphs
An inscription fromHama, in Anatolian hieroglyphs
Script type	Logographic
Period	14th–7th centuries BC
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	Hieroglyphic Luwian language
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hluw(080), ​Anatolian Hieroglyphs (Luwian Hieroglyphs, Hittite Hieroglyphs)
Unicode
Unicode alias	Anatolian Hieroglyphs
Unicode range	U+14400–U+1467F [1]
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenouslogographic script native to centralAnatolia, consisting of some 500 signs. They were once commonly known asHittite hieroglyphs, but the language they encode proved to beLuwian, notHittite, and the termLuwian hieroglyphs is used in English publications. They are typologically similar toEgyptian hieroglyphs, but do not derive graphically from that script, and they are not known to have played the sacred role of hieroglyphs in Egypt. There is no demonstrable connection toHittite cuneiform.^[2][3][4]

Individual Anatolian hieroglyphs are attested from the second and early first millennia BC across Anatolia and into modern Syria. A biconvex bronze personal seal was found in theTroy VIIb level (later half of the 12th century BC) inscribed with Luwian Hieroglyphs.^[5] The earliest examples occur on personalseals, but these consist only of names, titles, and auspicious signs, and it is not certain that they represent language. Most actual texts are found as monumental inscriptions in stone, though a few documents have survived on lead strips.

The first inscriptions confirmed as Luwian date to theLate Bronze Age, ca. 14th to 13th centuries BC. After some two centuries of sparse material, the hieroglyphs resume in the EarlyIron Age, ca. 10th to 8th centuries BC. In the early 7th century BC, the Luwian hieroglyphic script, by then aged some 700 years, was marginalized by competingalphabetic scripts and fell into oblivion.

While almost^[6] all the preserved texts employing Anatolian hieroglyphs are written in theLuwian language,^[7] some features of the script suggest its earliest development within a bilingual Hittite-Luwian environment. For example, the sign which has the form of a "taking" or "grasping" hand has the value /ta/, which is precisely the Hittite word ta-/da- "to take," in contrast with the Luwian cognate of the same meaning which is la-.^[8] There was occasionally some use of Anatolian hieroglyphs to write foreign material likeHurriantheonyms, or glosses inUrartian (such asá – ḫá+ra – ku foraqarqi ortu – ru – za forṭerusi, two units of measurement).

• 
  TheMarash Lion, with Anatolian hieroglyphs
• 
  Marash Lion side view
• 
  GodTarḫunz with inscription in Anatolian hieroglyphs
• 
  Slab with Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions mentioning the activities of king Urhilina and his son. 9th century BC. From Hama. Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul

As in Egyptian, characters may be logographic or phonographic—that is, they may be used to represent words or sounds. The number of phonographic signs is limited. Most represent CV syllables (CV = consonant vowel), though there are a fewdisyllabic signs. A large number of these are ambiguous as to whether the vowel isa ori. Some signs are dedicated to one use or another, but many are flexible.

Words may be written logographically, phonetically, mixed (that is, a logogram with aphonetic complement), and may be preceded by adeterminative. Other than the fact that the phonetic glyphs form asyllabary rather than indicating only consonants, this system is analogous to the system of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

A more elaborate monumental style is distinguished from more abstract linear or cursive forms of the script. In general, relief inscriptions prefer monumental forms, and incised ones prefer the linear form, but the styles are in principle interchangeable. Texts of several lines are usually written inboustrophedon style. Within a line, signs are usually written in vertical columns of two to four signs, but as inEgyptian hieroglyphs, aesthetic considerations take precedence over correct reading order. Many texts also employ an explicit word divider character.^[9]

One peculiarity of the Luwian writing system is that in some texts vowel signs, usually repeating the vowel of the preceding syllable, were used to fill up sign columns, so that new words would always start at the top of the line.^[10] Some texts also exhibit the so-called "initial-à-final" pattern, where the word-initiala character is moved either to the top of the second column of signs or to the end of the word.^[11]

Anatolian hieroglyphs first came to Western attention in the nineteenth century, when European explorers such asJohann Ludwig Burckhardt andRichard Francis Burton described pictographic inscriptions on walls in the city ofHama,Syria. The same characters were recorded inBoğazköy, and presumed byA. H. Sayce to be Hittite in origin.^[12]

By 1915, with the Luwian language known from cuneiform, and a substantial quantity of Anatolian hieroglyphs transcribed and published, linguists started to make real progress in reading the script.^[12] In the 1930s, it was partially deciphered byIgnace Gelb,Piero Meriggi,Emil Forrer, andBedřich Hrozný. Its language was confirmed as Luwian in 1973 byJ.D. Hawkins,Anna Morpurgo Davies andGünther Neumann, who corrected some previous errors about sign values, in particular emending the reading of symbols *376 and *377 fromi, ī tozi, za.

The script consists of some 500 unique signs,^[13] some with multiple values; a given sign may function as a logogram, a determinative or asyllabogram, or a combination thereof. The signs are numbered according toLaroche's sign list,^[14] with a prefix of 'L.' or '*'. Logograms are transcribed in Latin in capital letters. For example, *90, an image of a foot, is transcribed as PES when used logographically, and with its phonemic valueti when used as a syllabogram. In the rare cases where the logogram cannot be transliterated into Latin, it is rendered through its approximate Hittite equivalent, recorded in Italic capitals, e.g. *216ARHA. The most up-to-date sign list was compiled byMassimiliano Marazzi in 1998.^[15]

Transliteration of logograms is conventionally the term represented in Latin, in capital letters (e.g. PES for the logogram for "foot"). Thesyllabograms are transliterated, disambiguating homophonic signs analogously tocuneiform transliteration, e.g. ta=ta₁, tá=ta₂, and ta₆ transliterate three distinct ways of representing phonemic /ta/.^[19] Some of the homophonic signs have received further attention and new phonetic interpretation in recent years, e.g. tà has been argued to stand for /da/,^[20] and á seems to have stood for /ʔa/ (distinct from /a/), representing the descendant ofProto-Indo-European*/h₁/.^[21] One of the latest confirmed discoveries pertaining to the decipherment of Anatolian Hieroglyphs is the re-interpretation of the signs ta₄ and ta₅ as⟨la/i⟩ and⟨lá/í⟩ respectively^[22]

Anatolian hieroglyphs were added to theUnicode Standard in June, 2015 with the release of version 8.0.

The Unicode block for Anatolian Hieroglyphs is U+14400–U+1467F:

• Bonus2.vir2
• Hittite cuneiform
• Alphabets of Anatolia