The signs could serve either as logograms, with each representing a particular word, phonograms, where each represented a particular sound, or as determinatives. They form a primarily figurative script, with each glyph representing a concrete or abstract element in a stylized or simplified image that is still highly recognizable.Įxactly what meaning each hieroglyph was supposed to take on was dependent on the context in which it appeared. So what exactly are they, and what set them apart from other similar scripts? For starters, Egyptian hieroglyphs had surprising complexity in their use. Although many other historical scripts employed glyphs, it is only Egyptian ones that bear the name hieroglyphs, as those are the only ones encountered by and christened as such by the Greeks. To start, you may at one point or another hear the term ‘hieroglyph’ used to describe other script systems, particularly those that employ pictograms - such as the characters used in modern Chinese. The art of interpreting them was lost for a long time - ever since the Christianization of the Roman Empire and subsequent shuttering of all non-Christian temples in 391 - and, despite historical attempts to decipher them, it was only with the discovery of the famous Rosetta Stone by Napoleon’s soldiers in 1799 that the secret of understanding these glyphs was finally pieced back together.

It is one of the oldest systems of writing in history and a likely forefather of most script systems in use today.Įgypt’s ancient hieroglyphs capture the imagination of people around the world today and have done so throughout history. These are Egypt’s ancient hieroglyphs, a surprisingly nuanced and complex writing system used by ancient Egyptians to represent their language in auspicious settings such as monuments, religious complexes, and official buildings. To the Greeks, these came to be known as hieroglyphikos, or ‘sacred glyphs’. Could such a gaggle of random images carry any sort of meaning? For educated people living in Ancient Egypt, these images were not only dripping with meaning and beauty, but they were in fact their medu netjer, the ‘words of gods’ themselves. Carvings of a bird, bottle, a lion, all around two feathers followed by a forearm.

Egyptian glyphs