About Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Today we found out about Egyptian hieroglyphs. Here is a little of what we found out:

• The ancient Egyptians began to develop a writing system over 5000 years ago around 3000BCE. Today we call this writng system hieroglyphs.

• This writing was uncovered by the Rosetta Stone. Hieroglyphs use small pictures which represent the sound of the object or an idea associated with the object.

• The name or noun hieroglyph means sacred carving. If we use it as an adjective the word changes to hieroglyphic as in hieroglyphic writing.

• There are over 700 signs and there are no hieroglyphs for vowels.

• Hieroglyphs can be written and read from top to bottom or from left to right or right to left, it all depends on which way the person, animal or bird is facing.

• Hieroglyphs were written on papyrus reed, which is a water or marsh plant, with tall straight hollow stems.The reeds were flattened, dried, and stuck together to make pages. The Egyptians also carved hieroglyphs onto stone and painted them on the walls of the tombs.

Can you do some hieroglyphic writing?