Hieroglyphic Sign-lists, the Thot Sign List (TSL) and towards an Unicode Hieroglyphic expansion

Hieroglyphic Sign Lists have been a staple of modern Egyptology since the decipherment of the Hieroglyphic script, and are known to most Egyptologists as very beneficial tools. In this lecture, a short history of signs lists will be given, up to and including the development of the Thot Sign List. Beside this history, I intend to show you some of the issues one can encounter during Hieroglyphic research, and what type of complexities arise during research. I will provide you an introduction into the Thot Sign Lis as well, and the underlying framework and ideals, and how the work has progressed since its launch in 2019. Following the discussion about the TSL, the I will talk about the current work being done in order to prepare a Hieroglyphic extension in Unicode, which will include control characters used for the arrangement of signs in a two-dimensional space, as well as a high number of new characters. Finally, I want to introduce the ongoing work on a Unicode Hieroglyphic font. This font will not only aid in the encoding of Hieroglyphic material, but will be a tool that can be integrated seamlessly into text-processing software.