Saqqara Technology


InScribeX Web

InScribeX Web from Saqqara Technology is a new way of working with Ancient Egyptian on the Internet. The X refers to cross-platform: InScribeX Web runs on Windows, MacOS X (Intel-only, not the pre-2006 PPC systems) and Linux. A technology preview is available on the InScribeX Web site www.inscribex.com.

IXW Screenshot

The InScribeX Web technology preview is currently focussed on enriching the range of applications of the InScribe desktop software (InScribe 2004, InScribe 2004SE and InScribe 3). Initial versions of the English-Egyptian and Egyptian-English dictionaries are already useful. In time it would be good to also make the IXW treatment of Ancient Egyptian accessible to a more casual audience.

Some interesting features of InScribeX Web:

  • No installation required for the IXW software and font. IXW uses the Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in on Windows and Mac and the equivalent Novell Moonlight plug-in on Linux. Silverlight is already installed on hundreds of millions of computers and is swiftly downloaded if not present already.
  • Built in Unicode version of the InScribe Hieroglyphic font for Hieroglyphs, Transliterations and useful special characters.
  • Standards support. Unicode 5.2 Egyptian Hieroglyphs with EGPZ 1.0 naming conventions for Gardiner-style codes.
  • Egyptian Data Formats. Manuel de Codage (Basic, InScribe Dialects). INSX (InScribe XML rich Egyptian text format, as developed for InScribe 3).

This is a long term project and is unlikely to go beyond 'technology preview' until 2010. However the preview is expected to be updated and enhanced regularly during 2009.

For background on where InScribeX originated see here.