What Are Egyptian Hieroglyphs?

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs are the world's oldest known system of writing. They date back to 3200 BC and were in constant use until the decline of the Egyptian civilisation as the Roman Empire expanded. The last datable hieroglyphic inscription was written at Hadrian's gate at Philae in 394 AD.

The word hieroglyph means sacred carved letter and it describes the appearance of the writing, which is formed by thousands of different pictorial symbols. A wavy horizontal line, for example is the symbol for water and three wavy horizontal lines, one of top of the other, represents the River Nile.

The ancient Egyptians carved their written stories on to every available surface of their sacred temples and religious sites. One of the amazing facts about hieroglyphs is that they can be read from left to right or right to left, bottom to top or top to bottom. The system works on stone, but it is too laborious on papyrus, so more easily written scripts developed for everyday use.