Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphs were used as the writing system of the ancient Egyptians for things such as keeping written records, telling stories, writing letters, and more. According to Egyptian tradition writing was invented by the god Thoth to make the people wiser and to strengthen their memory so they called it medu netjer or ‘God’s Words’.
Scientists say that there are three different types of hieroglyphics. Phonograms which are signs that represent a specific sound or sound of two or more letters.
Ideograms represent ideas like the ones that represent Gods. Determinatives help make the meaning of words clearer and are used to mark the end of words but are not translated or spoken. Over time two other Egyptian scripts were developed.
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Some discoveries suggest that hieroglyphs might be the oldest form of writing.
Scientists believe that ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs developed somewhere around 3200
BC. At first the Egyptians only used between 700 and 800 signs but by 300 B.C. there were over 6,000 signs that were used. Animals represented sounds or ideas. Shapes represented loops of ropes or houses. Many animals or shapes represented the things they resemble but not all of them did. Hieroglyphics could be written in almost any direction left to right, right to left, or top to bottom. They would have figure out which way to read it by the direction of the symbols. The Egyptians didn 't use any punctuation in
Kaley Sandridge Steagall English 13 February 2017 their writing. One of the goals in writing hieroglyphics was that the script would look like art and be pleasing to look at.
People needed special training to read and understand the hieroglyphs. Only special people, like royals, nobles, priests and scribes, could read hieroglyphs. So only about 3% of Egypt 's population could read. Egyptian scribes used thin pieces of papyrus or other writing surfaces made of wood to write on. They also used