Egyptian hieroglyphs - wikipedia Egyptian hieroglyphs `` Hieroglyphics '' redirects here. For other uses, see Hieroglyph ( disambiguation ). Egyptian hieroglyphs Hieroglyphs from the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak ( Seti I, 13th century BC ) Type Logography usable as an abjad Languages Egyptian language Time period ca. 3200 BC -- AD 400 Parent systems ( Proto - writing ) Egyptian hieroglyphs Child systems Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Meroitic, Proto - Sinaitic Direction Left - to - right ISO 15924 Egyp, 050 Unicode alias Egyptian Hieroglyphs Unicode range U + 13000 -- U + 1342F This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. Egyptian hieroglyphs ( / ˈhaɪərəˌɡlɪf, - roʊ - / ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing ; Meroitic was a late derivation from demotic. Use of hieroglyphic writing arises from proto - literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC ( Naqada III ), with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty ( 28th century BC ). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed into a mature writing system used for monumental inscription in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom period ; during this period, the system made use of about 900 distinct signs. The writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, extending into the 4th century AD. With the final closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean - François Champollion, with the help of the Rosetta Stone. Contents 1 Name 2 History and evolution 2.1 Origin 2.2 Mature writing system 2.3 Late Period 2.4 Late survival 3 Decipherment 4 Writing system 4.1 Phonetic reading 4.1. 1 Uniliteral signs 4.1. 2 Phonetic complements 4.2 Semantic reading 4.2. 1 Logograms 4.2. 2 Determinatives 4.3 Additional signs 4.3. 1 Cartouche 4.3. 2 Filling stroke 4.4 Signs joined together 4.4. 1 Doubling 4.5 Grammatical signs 5 Spelling 6 Simple examples 7 Encoding 8 See also 9 Notes and references 10 Further reading 11 External links Name The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός ( hieroglyphikos ), a compound of ἱερός ( hierós ' sacred ' ) and γλύφω ( glýphō ' Ι carve, engrave ' ; see glyph ). The glyphs themselves since the Ptolemaic period were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ ( γράμματα ) ( tà hieroglyphikà ( grámmata ) ) `` the sacred engraved letters '', the Greek counterpart to the Egyptian expression of mdw. w - nṯr `` god 's words ''. Greek ἱερογλυφός meant `` a carver of hieroglyphs ''. In English, hieroglyph as a noun is recorded from 1590, originally short for nominalised hieroglyphic ( 1580s, with a plural hieroglyphics ), from adjectival use ( hieroglyphic character ). History and evolution Origin Seal impression of Seth - Peribsen ( Second Dynasty, c. 28th century BC ) Hieroglyphs emerged from the preliterate artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c. 4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing. Proto - hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called `` Scorpion I '' ( Naqada IIIA period, c. 33rd century BC ) recovered at Abydos ( modern Umm el - Qa'ab ) in 1998 or the Narmer Palette ( c. 31st century BC ). The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth - Peribsen at Umm el - Qa'ab, which dates from the Second Dynasty ( 28th or 27th century BC ). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco - Roman period, there are more than 5,000. Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs `` came into existence a little after Sumerian script, and, probably ( were ), invented under the influence of the latter '', and that it is `` probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia ''. However, given the lack of direct evidence, `` no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt ''. Instead, it is pointed out and held that `` the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy '' and that `` a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt... '' Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, it has been held as doubtful whether the Mesopotamian symbol system can be said to predate the Egyptian one. Mature writing system Further information : Middle Egyptian language Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs : phonetic glyphs, including single - consonant characters that function like an alphabet ; logographs, representing morphemes ; and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words. Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in Manchester Museum Late period Further information : Late Egyptian language As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic ( priestly ) and demotic ( popular ) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts -- hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Late survival Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule ( intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC ), and after Alexander the Great 's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the misleading quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish ' true Egyptians ' from some of the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco - Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco - Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge. By the 4th century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the `` myth of allegorical hieroglyphs '' was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I ; the last known inscription is from Philae, known as the Graffito of Esmet - Akhom, from 394. The Hieroglyphica of Horapollo ( c. 5th century ) appears to retain some genuine knowledge about the writing system. It offers an explanation of close to 200 signs. Some are identified correctly, such as the `` goose '' hieroglyph ( zꜣ ) representing the word for `` son ''. Decipherment Main article : Decipherment of hieroglyphic writing Ibn Wahshiyya 's translation of the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph alphabet Knowledge of the hieroglyphs had been lost completely by the medieval period. Early attempts at decipherment are due to Dhul - Nun al - Misri and Ibn Wahshiyya ( 9th and 10th century, respectively ). The early modern tradition of decipherment attemtps begins with the work of Piero Valeriano Bolzani ( 1556 ). The most famous of the early `` decipherers '' was Athanasius Kircher. In his Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta ( 1643 ), Kircher called hieroglyphics `` this language hitherto unknown in Europe, in which there are as many pictures as letters, as many riddles as sounds, in short as many mazes to be escaped from as mountains to be climbed ''. While some of his notions are long discredited, portions of his work have been valuable to later scholars, and Kircher helped pioneer Egyptology as a field of serious study. All medieval and early modern attempts were hampered by the fundamental assumption that hieroglyphs recorded ideas and not the sounds of the language. As no bilingual texts were available, any such symbolic ' translation ' could be proposed without the possibility of verification. The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum The breakthrough in decipherment came only with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon 's troops in 1799 ( during Napoleon 's Egyptian invasion ). As the stone presented a hieroglyphic and a demotic version of the same text in parallel with a Greek translation, plenty of material for falsifiable studies in translation was suddenly available. In the early 19th century, scholars such as Silvestre de Sacy, Johan David Åkerblad, and Thomas Young studied the inscriptions on the stone, and were able to make some headway. Finally, Jean - François Champollion made the complete decipherment by the 1820s. In his Lettre à M. Dacier ( 1822 ), he wrote : It is a complex system, writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word. Hieroglyphs survive today in two forms : directly, through half a dozen Demotic glyphs added to the Greek alphabet when writing Coptic ; and indirectly, as the inspiration for the original alphabet that was ancestral to nearly every other alphabet ever used, including the Latin alphabet. Writing system This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help : IPA. Visually, hieroglyphs are all more or less figurative : they represent real or illusional elements, sometimes stylized and simplified, but all generally perfectly recognizable in form. However, the same sign can, according to context, be interpreted in diverse ways : as a phonogram ( phonetic reading ), as a logogram, or as an ideogram ( semagram ; `` determinative '' ) ( semantic reading ). The determinative was not read as a phonetic constituent, but facilitated understanding by differentiating the word from its homophones. Phonetic reading Hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco - Roman period Most non-determinative hieroglyphic signs are phonetic in nature, meaning that the sign is read independently of its visual characteristics ( according to the rebus principle where, for example, the picture of an eye could stand for the English words eye and I ( the first person pronoun ) ). This picture of an eye is called a phonogram of the word, ' I '. Phonograms formed with one consonant are called uniliteral signs ; with two consonants, biliteral signs ; with three, triliteral signs. Twenty - four uniliteral signs make up the so - called hieroglyphic alphabet. Egyptian hieroglyphic writing does not normally indicate vowels, unlike cuneiform, and for that reason has been labelled by some an abjad alphabet, i.e., an alphabet without vowels. Thus, hieroglyphic writing representing a pintail duck is read in Egyptian as sꜣ, derived from the main consonants of the Egyptian word for this duck : ' s ', ' ꜣ ' and ' t '. ( Note that ꜣ (, two half - rings opening to the left ), sometimes replaced by the digit ' 3 ', is the Egyptian alef ). It is also possible to use the hieroglyph of the pintail duck without a link to its meaning in order to represent the two phonemes s and ꜣ, independently of any vowels that could accompany these consonants, and in this way write the word : sꜣ, `` son '', or when complemented by the context other signs detailed further in the text, sꜣ, `` keep, watch '' ; and sꜣṯ. w, `` hard ground ''. For example : -- the characters sꜣ ; -- the same character used only in order to signify, according to the context, `` pintail duck '' or, with the appropriate determinative, `` son '', two words having the same or similar consonants ; the meaning of the little vertical stroke will be explained further on : -- the character sꜣ as used in the word sꜣw, `` keep, watch '' As in the Arabic script, not all vowels were written in Egyptian hieroglyphs ; it is debatable whether vowels were written at all. Possibly, as with Arabic, the semivowels / w / and / j / ( as in English W and Y ) could double as the vowels / u / and / i /. In modern transcriptions, an e is added between consonants to aid in their pronunciation. For example, nfr `` good '' is typically written nefer. This does not reflect Egyptian vowels, which are obscure, but is merely a modern convention. Likewise, the ꜣ and ʾ are commonly transliterated as a, as in Ra. Hieroglyphs are written from right to left, from left to right, or from top to bottom, the usual direction being from right to left ( although, for convenience, modern texts are often normalized into left - to - right order ). The reader must consider the direction in which the asymmetrical hieroglyphs are turned in order to determine the proper reading order. For example, when human and animal hieroglyphs face to the left ( i.e., they look left ), they must be read from left to right, and vice versa, the idea being that the hieroglyphs face the beginning of the line. As in many ancient writing systems, words are not separated by blanks or by punctuation marks. However, certain hieroglyphs appear particularly common only at the end of words, making it possible to readily distinguish words. Uniliteral signs Hieroglyphs at Amada, at temple founded by Tuthmosis III. Main article : Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian § Uniliteral signs The Egyptian hieroglyphic script contained 24 uniliterals ( symbols that stood for single consonants, much like letters in English ). It would have been possible to write all Egyptian words in the manner of these signs, but the Egyptians never did so and never simplified their complex writing into a true alphabet. Each uniliteral glyph once had a unique reading, but several of these fell together as Old Egyptian developed into Middle Egyptian. For example, the folded - cloth glyph seems to have been originally an / s / and the door - bolt glyph a / θ / sound, but these both came to be pronounced / s /, as the / θ / sound was lost. A few uniliterals first appear in Middle Egyptian texts. Besides the uniliteral glyphs, there are also the biliteral and triliteral signs, to represent a specific sequence of two or three consonants, consonants and vowels, and a few as vowel combinations only, in the language. Phonetic complements Egyptian writing is often redundant : in fact, it happens very frequently that a word might follow several characters writing the same sounds, in order to guide the reader. For example, the word nfr, `` beautiful, good, perfect '', was written with a unique triliteral that was read as nfr : However, it is considerably more common to add to that triliteral, the uniliterals for f and r. The word can thus be written as nfr + f + r, but one still reads it merely as nfr. The two alphabetic characters are adding clarity to the spelling of the preceding triliteral hieroglyph. Redundant characters accompanying biliteral or triliteral signs are called phonetic complements ( or complementaries ). They can be placed in front of the sign ( rarely ), after the sign ( as a general rule ), or even framing it ( appearing both before and after ). Ancient Egyptian scribes consistently avoided leaving large areas of blank space in their writing, and might add additional phonetic complements or sometimes even invert the order of signs if this would result in a more aesthetically pleasing appearance ( good scribes attended to the artistic, and even religious, aspects of the hieroglyphs, and would not simply view them as a communication tool ). Various examples of the use of phonetic complements can be seen below : -- md + d + w ( the complementary d is placed after the sign ) → it reads mdw, meaning `` tongue ''. -- ḫ + p + ḫpr + r + j ( the four complementaries frame the triliteral sign of the scarab beetle ) → it reads ḫpr. j, meaning the name `` Khepri '', with the final glyph being the determinative for ' ruler or god '. Notably, phonetic complements were also used to allow the reader to differentiate between signs that are homophones, or which do not always have a unique reading. For example, the symbol of `` the seat '' ( or chair ) : -- This can be read st, ws and ḥtm, according to the word in which it is found. The presence of phonetic complements -- and of the suitable determinative -- allows the reader to know which of the three readings to choose : 1st Reading : st -- -- st, written st + t ; the last character is the determinative of `` the house '' or that which is found there, meaning `` seat, throne, place '' ; -- st ( written st + t ; the `` egg '' determinative is used for female personal names in some periods ), meaning `` Isis '' ; 2nd Reading : ws -- -- wsjr ( written ws+jr, with, as a phonetic complement, `` the eye '', which is read jr, following the determinative of `` god '' ), meaning `` Osiris '' ; 3rd Reading : ḥtm -- -- ḥtm. t ( written ḥ + ḥtm + m + t, with the determinative of `` Anubis '' or `` the jackal '' ), meaning a kind of wild animal ; -- ḥtm ( written ḥ + ḥtm + t, with the determinative of the flying bird ), meaning `` to disappear ''. Finally, it sometimes happens that the pronunciation of words might be changed because of their connection to Ancient Egyptian : in this case, it is not rare for writing to adopt a compromise in notation, the two readings being indicated jointly. For example, the adjective bnj, `` sweet '', became bnr. In Middle Egyptian, one can write : -- bnrj ( written b + n + r + i, with determinative ) which is fully read as bnr, the j not being pronounced but retained in order to keep a written connection with the ancient word ( in the same fashion as the English language words through, knife, or victuals, which are no longer pronounced the way they are written. ) Semantic reading Besides a phonetic interpretation, characters can also be read for their meaning : in this instance, logograms are being spoken ( or ideograms ) and semagrams ( the latter are also called determinatives ). Logograms A hieroglyph used as a logogram defines the object of which it is an image. Logograms are therefore the most frequently used common nouns ; they are always accompanied by a mute vertical stroke indicating their status as a logogram ( the usage of a vertical stroke is further explained below ) ; in theory, all hieroglyphs would have the ability to be used as logograms. Logograms can be accompanied by phonetic complements. Here are some examples : -- rꜥ, meaning `` sun '' ; -- pr, meaning `` house '' ; -- swt ( sw+t ), meaning `` reed '' ; -- ḏw, meaning `` mountain ''. In some cases, the semantic connection is indirect ( metonymic or metaphoric ) : -- nṯr, meaning `` god '' ; the character in fact represents a temple flag ( standard ) ; -- bꜣ, meaning `` Bâ '' ( soul ) ; the character is the traditional representation of a `` bâ '' ( a bird with a human head ) ; -- dšr, meaning `` flamingo '' ; the corresponding phonogram means `` red '' and the bird is associated by metonymy with this color. Determinatives Determinatives or semagrams ( semantic symbols specifying meaning ) are placed at the end of a word. These mute characters serve to clarify what the word is about, as homophonic glyphs are common. If a similar procedure existed in English, words with the same spelling would be followed by an indicator that would not be read, but which would fine - tune the meaning : `` retort ( chemistry ) '' and `` retort ( rhetoric ) '' would thus be distinguished. A number of determinatives exist : divinities, humans, parts of the human body, animals, plants, etc. Certain determinatives possess a literal and a figurative meaning. For example, a roll of papyrus, is used to define `` books '' but also abstract ideas. The determinative of the plural is a shortcut to signal three occurrences of the word, that is to say, its plural ( since the Egyptian language had a dual, sometimes indicated by two strokes ). This special character is explained below. Here, are several examples of the use of determinatives borrowed from the book, Je lis les hiéroglyphes ( `` I am reading hieroglyphs '' ) by Jean Capart, which illustrate their importance : -- nfrw ( w and the three strokes are the marks of the plural : ( literally ) `` the beautiful young people '', that is to say, the young military recruits. The word has a young - person determinative symbol : -- which is the determinative indicating babies and children ; -- nfr. t (. t is here the suffix that forms the feminine ) : meaning `` the nubile young woman '', with as the determinative indicating a woman ; -- nfrw ( the tripling of the character serving to express the plural, flexional ending w ) : meaning `` foundations ( of a house ) '', with the house as a determinative, ; -- nfr : meaning `` clothing '' with as the determinative for lengths of cloth ; -- nfr : meaning `` wine '' or `` beer '' ; with a jug as the determinative. All these words have a meliorative connotation : `` good, beautiful, perfect ''. The Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Raymond A. Faulkner, gives some twenty words that are read nfr or which are formed from this word. Additional signs Cartouche Rarely, the names of gods are placed within a cartouche ; the two last names of the sitting king are always placed within a cartouche : jmn - rꜥ, `` Amon - Ra '' ; qljwꜣpdrꜣ. t, `` Cleopatra '' ; Filling stroke A filling stroke is a character indicating the end of a quadrat that would otherwise be incomplete. Signs joined together Some signs are the contraction of several others. These signs have, however, a function and existence of their own : for example, a forearm where the hand holds a scepter is used as a determinative for words meaning `` to direct, to drive '' and their derivatives. Doubling The doubling of a sign indicates its dual ; the tripling of a sign indicates its plural. Grammatical signs The vertical stroke, indicating the sign is a logogram ; The two strokes of the `` dual '' and the three strokes of the `` plural '' ; The direct notation of flexional endings, for example : Spelling Standard orthography -- `` correct '' spelling -- in Egyptian is much looser than in modern languages. In fact, one or several variants exist for almost every word. One finds : Redundancies ; Omission of graphemes, which are ignored whether or not they are intentional ; Substitutions of one grapheme for another, such that it is impossible to distinguish a `` mistake '' from an `` alternate spelling '' ; Errors of omission in the drawing of signs, which are much more problematic when the writing is cursive ( hieratic ) writing, but especially demotic, where the schematization of the signs is extreme. However, many of these apparent spelling errors constitute an issue of chronology. Spelling and standards have varied over time, so the writing of a word during the Old Kingdom might be considerably different during the New Kingdom. Furthermore, the Egyptians were perfectly content to include older orthography ( `` historical spelling '' ) alongside newer practices, as though it were acceptable in English to use archaic spellings in modern texts. Most often, ancient `` spelling errors '' are simply misinterpretations of context. Today, hieroglyphicists use numerous cataloguing systems ( notably the Manuel de Codage and Gardiner 's Sign List ) to clarify the presence of determinatives, ideograms, and other ambiguous signs in transliteration. Simple examples nomen or birth name Ptolemy in hieroglyphs The glyphs in this cartouche are transliterated as : p `` ua '' l m y ( ii ) s Ptolmys though ii is considered a single letter and transliterated y. Another way in which hieroglyphs work is illustrated by the two Egyptian words pronounced pr ( usually vocalised as per ). One word is ' house ', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward : Here, the ' house ' hieroglyph works as a logogram : it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a glyph is working as a logogram. Another word pr is the verb ' to go out, leave '. When this word is written, the ' house ' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol : Here, the ' house ' glyph stands for the consonants pr. The ' mouth ' glyph below it is a phonetic complement : it is read as r, reinforcing the phonetic reading of pr. The third hieroglyph is a determinative : it is an ideogram for verbs of motion that gives the reader an idea of the meaning of the word. Encoding This section contains Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Egyptian Hieroglyphs were added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2, as the `` Egyptian Hieroglyphs '' ( U + 13000 -- U + 1342F ) block with 1,070 defined characters ( and one reserved codepoint ). As of July 2013, four fonts, `` Aegyptus '', NewGardiner. ttf, Noto Egyptian Hieroglyphs and JSeshFont support this range. Another font, `` Segoe UI Historic '', comes bundled with Windows 10 and contains the entire Egyptian hieroglyphs block as well as other historic scripts as Cuneiform. See also Ancient Egypt portal List of Egyptian hieroglyphs Gardiner 's sign list Egyptian numerals Egyptian language Middle Bronze Age alphabets Writing in Ancient Egypt Manuel de Codage Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian Notes and references ^ Jump up to : Richard Mattessich ( 2002 ). `` The oldest writings, and inventory tags of Egypt ''. Accounting Historians Journal. 29 ( 1 ) : 195 -- 208. JSTOR 40698264. Jump up ^ Jones, Daniel ( 2003 ) ( 1917 ), Peter Roach, James Hartmann and Jane Setter, eds., English Pronouncing Dictionary, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, ISBN 3 - 12 - 539683 - 2 CS1 maint : Uses editors parameter ( link ) Jump up ^ `` hieroglyph ''. Merriam - Webster Dictionary. ^ Jump up to : There were about 1,000 graphemes in the Old Kingdom period, reduced to around 750 to 850 in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom, but inflated to the order of some 5,000 signs in the Ptolemaic period. Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian : A Linguistic Introduction ( Cambridge : Cambridge UP, 1995 ), p. 12. Jump up ^ The standard inventory of characters used in Egyptology is Gardiner 's sign list ( 1928 -- 1953 ). A.H. Gardiner ( 1928 ), Catalogue of the Egyptian hieroglyphic printing type, from matrices owned and controlled by Dr. Alan Gardiner, `` Additions to the new hieroglyphic fount ( 1928 ) '', in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 15 ( 1929 ), p. 95 ;, `` Additions to the new hieroglyphic fount ( 1931 ) '', in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 17 ( 1931 ), pp. 245 - 247 ; A.H. Gardiner, `` Supplement to the catalogue of the Egyptian hieroglyphic printing type, showing acquisitions to December 1953 '' ( 1953 ). Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphs as of version 5.2 ( 2009 ) assigned 1,070 Unicode characters. Jump up ^ ἱερογλυφικός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek -- English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ ἱερός, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek -- English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ γλύφω, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek -- English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library Jump up ^ Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian : A Linguistic Introduction ( Cambridge : Cambridge UP, 1995 ), p. 11. Jump up ^ `` Hieroglyphic Definition of Hieroglyphic by Merriam - Webster ''. Retrieved 2016 - 08 - 27. Jump up ^ Geoffrey Sampson ( 1 January 1990 ). Writing Systems : A Linguistic Introduction. Stanford University Press. pp. 78 --. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8047 - 1756 - 4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley ( June 1995 ). The international standard Bible encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 1150 --. ISBN 978 - 0 - 8028 - 3784 - 4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen Edwards, et al., The Cambridge Ancient History ( 3d ed. 1970 ) pp. 43 -- 44. Jump up ^ Robert E. Krebs ; Carolyn A. Krebs ( December 2003 ). Groundbreaking scientific experiments, inventions, and discoveries of the ancient world. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 91 --. ISBN 978 - 0 - 313 - 31342 - 4. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree : A Modern Survey of an Ancient Land, Algora Publishing, 2004, pp. 55 -- 56. Jump up ^ `` challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia. '' Mitchell, Larkin. `` Earliest Egyptian Glyphs ''. Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America. Retrieved 29 February 2012. Jump up ^ The latest presently known hieroglyphic inscription date : Birthday of Osiris, year 110 ( of Diocletian ), dated to August 24, 394 Jump up ^ Ahmed ibn ' Ali ibn al Mukhtar ibn ' Abd al Karim ( called Ibn Wahshiyah ) ( 1806 ). Ancient alphabets & hieroglyphic characters explained : with an account of the Egyptian priests, their classes, initiation time, & sacrifices by the aztecs and their birds, in the Arabic language. W. Bulmer & co. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Jump up ^ Jean - François Champollion, Letter to M. Dacier, September 27, 1822 Jump up ^ Sir Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, Third Edition Revised, Griffith Institute ( 2005 ), p. 25 Jump up ^ Gardiner, Sir Alan H. ( 1973 ). Egyptian Grammar. Griffith Institute. ISBN 0 - 900416 - 35 - 1. Jump up ^ Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian, A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press ( 1995 ), p. 13 Further reading Adkins, Lesley ; Adkins, Roy ( 2000 ). The Keys of Egypt : The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs. HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 0 - 06 - 019439 - 1. Allen, James P. ( 1999 ). Middle Egyptian : An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0 - 521 - 77483 - 7. Collier, Mark & Bill Manley ( 1998 ). How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs : a step - by - step guide to teach yourself. British Museum Press. ISBN 0 - 7141 - 1910 - 5. Selden, Daniel L. ( 2013 ). Hieroglyphic Egyptian : An Introduction to the Language and Literature of the Middle Kingdom. University of California Press. ISBN 0 - 520 - 27546 - 2. Faulkner, Raymond O. ( 1962 ). Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian. Griffith Institute. ISBN 0 - 900416 - 32 - 7. Gardiner, Sir Alan H. ( 1957 ). Egyptian Grammar : Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, 3rd ed. The Griffith Institute. Hill, Marsha ( 2007 ). Gifts for the gods : images from Egyptian temples. New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 9781588392312. Kamrin, Janice ( 2004 ). Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs : A Practical Guide. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0 - 8109 - 4961 - X. McDonald, Angela. Write Your Own Egyptian Hieroglyphs. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2007 ( paperback, ISBN 0 - 520 - 25235 - 7 ). External links Look up hieroglyph in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics -- Aldokkan Glyphs and Grammars -- Resources for those interested in learning hieroglyphs, compiled by Aayko Eyma Hieroglyphics ! -- Annotated directory of popular and scholarly resources Egyptian Language and Writing Full - text of The stela of Menthu - weser Wikimedia 's hieroglyph writing codes Unicode Fonts for Ancient Scripts -- Ancient scripts free software fonts Ancient Egypt topics Outline Index Major topics Glossary of artifacts Agriculture Architecture ( Egyptian Revival architecture ) Art Astronomy Burial customs Chronology Cities ( list ) Clothing Cuisine Dynasties Geography Great Royal Wives History Language Literature Mathematics Medicine Military Music Mythology People Pharaohs ( list ) Philosophy Religion Sites Technology Trade Writing Egyptology Egyptologists Museums Book Ancient Egypt portal WikiProject Commons Types of writing systems Overview History of writing Grapheme Lists Writing systems undeciphered inventors constructed Languages by writing system / by first written accounts Types Abjads Numerals Aramaic Hatran Arabic Pitman shorthand Hebrew Ashuri Cursive Rashi Solitreo Tifinagh Manichaean Nabataean Old North Arabian Pahlavi Pegon Phoenician Paleo - Hebrew Proto - Sinaitic Psalter Punic Samaritan South Arabian Zabur Musnad Sogdian Syriac ʾEsṭrangēlā Serṭā Maḏnḥāyā Teeline Shorthand Ugaritic Abugidas Brahmic Northern Asamiya ( Ôxômiya ) Bānglā Bhaikshuki Bhujinmol Brāhmī Devanāgarī Dogri Gujarati Gupta Gurmukhī Kaithi Kalinga Khojki Khotanese Khudawadi Laṇḍā Lepcha Limbu Mahajani Meitei Mayek Modi Multani Nāgarī Nandinagari Odia ' Phags - pa Newar Ranjana Sharada Saurashtra Siddhaṃ Soyombo Sylheti Nagari Takri Tibetan Uchen Umê Tirhuta Tocharian Zanabazar Square Zhang - Zhung Drusha Marchen Marchung Pungs - chen Pungs - chung Southern Ahom Balinese Batak Baybayin Bhattiprolu Buhid Burmese Chakma Cham Grantha Goykanadi Hanunó'o Javanese Kadamba Kannada Kawi Khmer Kulitan Lanna Lao Leke Lontara Malayalam Maldivian Dhives Akuru Eveyla Akuru Thaana Mon Old Makassarese Old Sundanese Pallava Pyu Rejang Rencong Sinhala Sundanese Tagbanwa Tai Le Tai Tham Tai Viet Tamil Telugu Thai Tigalari Vatteluttu Kolezhuthu Malayanma Visayan Others Boyd 's syllabic shorthand Canadian syllabics Blackfoot Déné syllabics Fox I Ge'ez Gunjala Gondi Japanese Braille Jenticha Kayah Li Kharosthi Mandombe Masaram Gondi Meroitic Miao Mwangwego Sorang Sompeng Pahawh Hmong Thomas Natural Shorthand Alphabets Linear Abkhaz Adlam Armenian Avestan Avoiuli Bassa Vah Borama Carian Caucasian Albanian Coorgi -- Cox alphabet Coptic Cyrillic Deseret Duployan shorthand Chinook writing Early Cyrillic Eclectic shorthand Elbasan Etruscan Evenki Fox II Fraser Gabelsberger shorthand Garay Georgian Asomtavruli Nuskhuri Mkhedruli Glagolitic Gothic Gregg shorthand Greek Greco - Iberian alphabet Hangul Hanifi IPA Kaddare Latin Beneventan Blackletter Carolingian minuscule Fraktur Gaelic Insular Kurrent Merovingian Sigla Sütterlin Tironian notes Visigothic Luo Lycian Lydian Manchu Mandaic Medefaidrin Molodtsov Mongolian Mru Neo-Tifinagh New Tai Lue N'Ko Ogham Oirat Ol Chiki Old Hungarian Old Italic Old Permic Orkhon Old Uyghur Osage Osmanya Pau Cin Hau Runic Anglo - Saxon Cipher Dalecarlian Elder Futhark Younger Futhark Gothic Marcomannic Medieval Staveless Sidetic Shavian Somali Tifinagh Vagindra Visible Speech Vithkuqi Wancho Zaghawa Non-linear Braille Maritime flags Morse code New York Point Semaphore line Flag semaphore Moon type Ideograms / Pictograms Adinkra Aztec Blissymbol Dongba Ersu Shaba Emoji IConji Isotype Kaidā Míkmaq Mixtec New Epoch Notation Painting Nsibidi Ojibwe Hieroglyphs Siglas poveiras Testerian Yerkish Zapotec Logograms Chinese family of scripts Chinese Characters Simplified Traditional Oracle bone script Bronze Script Seal Script large small bird - worm Hanja Idu Kanji Chữ nôm Zhuang Chinese - influenced Jurchen Khitan large script Sui Tangut Cuneiform Akkadian Assyrian Elamite Hittite Luwian Sumerian Other logo - syllabic Anatolian Bagam Cretan Isthmian Maya Proto - Elamite Yi ( Classical ) Logo - consonantal Demotic Hieratic Hieroglyphs Numerals Hindu - Arabic Abjad Attic ( Greek ) Muisca Roman Semi-syllabaries Full Celtiberian Northeastern Iberian Southeastern Iberian Khom Redundant Espanca Pahawh Hmong Khitan small script Southwest Paleohispanic Zhuyin fuhao Somacheirograms ASLwrite SignWriting si5s Stokoe Notation Syllabaries Afaka Bamum Bété Byblos Cherokee Cypriot Cypro - Minoan Ditema tsa Dinoko Eskayan Geba Great Lakes Algonquian syllabics Iban Japanese Hiragana Katakana Man'yōgana Hentaigana Sogana Jindai moji Kikakui Kpelle Linear B Linear Elamite Lisu Loma Nüshu Nwagu Aneke script Old Persian Cuneiform Vai Woleai Yi ( Modern ) Yugtun Braille ⠃ ⠗ ⠁ ⠊ ⠇ ⠇ ⠑ Braille cell 1829 braille International uniformity ASCII braille Unicode braille patterns Braille scripts French - ordered scripts ( see for more ) Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Belarusian Bharati Devanagari ( Hindi / Marathi / Nepali ) Bengali Punjabi Sinhalese Tamil Urdu etc. Bulgarian Burmese Cambodian Cantonese Catalan Chinese ( Mandarin, mainland ) Czech Dutch Dzongkha ( Bhutanese ) English ( Unified English ) Esperanto Estonian Faroese French Georgian German Ghanaian Greek Guarani Hawaiian Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Inuktitut ( reassigned vowels ) Iñupiaq IPA Irish Italian Kazakh Kyrgyz Latvian Lithuanian Maltese Mongolian Māori Nigerian Northern Sami Persian Philippine Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Samoan Scandinavian Slovak South African Spanish Tatar Taiwanese Mandarin ( largely reassigned ) Thai & Lao ( Japanese vowels ) Tibetan Turkish Ukrainian Vietnamese Welsh Yugoslav Reordered scripts Algerian Braille ( obsolete ) Frequency - based scripts American Braille ( obsolete ) Independent scripts Japanese Korean Two - Cell Chinese Eight - dot scripts Luxembourgish Kanji Gardner -- Salinas braille codes ( GS8 ) Symbols in braille Braille music Canadian currency marks Computer Braille Code Gardner -- Salinas braille codes ( GS8 / GS6 ) International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA ) Nemeth braille code Braille technology Braille e-book Braille embosser Braille translator Braille watch Mountbatten Brailler Optical braille recognition Perforation Perkins Brailler Refreshable braille display Slate and stylus Braigo Persons Louis Braille Charles Barbier Valentin Haüy Thakur Vishva Narain Singh Sabriye Tenberken William Bell Wait Organisations Braille Institute of America Braille Without Borders Japan Braille Library National Braille Association Blindness organizations Schools for the blind American Printing House for the Blind Other tactile alphabets Decapoint Moon type New York Point Night writing Vibratese Related topics Accessible publishing Braille literacy RoboBraille Egyptian hieroglyphs List uniliteral biliteral numerals Gardiner 's list Q U V X Y Z Aa Unicode NDL : 00978198 Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egyptian_hieroglyphs&oldid=812359396 '' Categories : Scripts with ISO 15924 four - letter codes Foreign character warning boxes Egyptian hieroglyphs Ancient languages Bronze Age writing systems Egyptian languages Writing systems of Africa Ancient Egyptian culture Scripts encoded in Unicode 5.2 Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Uses editors parameter All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from November 2016 Wikipedia pages semi-protected against vandalism Articles containing Ancient Greek - language text Wikipedia articles needing clarification from June 2009 Articles containing potentially dated statements from July 2013 All articles containing potentially dated statements Talk View source Contents About Wikipedia Languages Afrikaans Alemannisch Azərbaycanca বাংলা Bân - lâm - gú Беларуская Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Español Esperanto Estremeñu Euskara فارسی Français Gaeilge Gaelg Gàidhlig Galego 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Hrvatski Ido Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית ქართული Қазақша Kiswahili Kurdî Latina Latviešu Lietuvių Македонски മലയാളം Malti მარგალური مصرى Bahasa Melayu Mìng - 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Question: what is the name for ancient egyptian writing
Answer: hieroglyphs