Horapollo Niliacus, who most likely never existed, wrote the original Hieroglyphica. It was a collection of some 189 interpretations of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were entirely, and unintentionally, fallacious. Using Horapollo's original chapter titles and order, as well as incorporating many of his sentences, Michael Stewart's The Hieroglyphics attempts to engage in a kind of conversation with this text, while also bringing in lines from the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch, and the Old Testament, among others.