What Are Hieroglyphics?

Hieroglyphics are pictures that, often arbitrarily, represent phonetic sounds.  For example: A bird could mean the sound "theo" and a river could mean "rem".  Now you put them together and you have "theorem".  (My example is made up, and not meant to be a translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs; I'm only illustrating a point.)

Egyptians used these picture symbols to show their way of life.
These pictures were drawn on walls with a paint-like chalk substance.
?? They were usually brown or red or black or white, and people of early times were mostly colorblind could not see full colors.

The symbols of birds and other things were their written language, with each picture having several meanings. Their spoken language had no real vowel sounds, or those were never recorded. The pictures tell of a way of life which believed in the afterlife and of poetry, of telling about agriculture and farming and love marriage children and families. Some of what they wrote is very beautiful, try the Normandi Elllis translation of " The Book of the Dead".

The book is not about death, it means, The Book of Coming Forth by Day or The Book of winter. It is poetry that tells about the beauty of life.