What are Hieroglyphs

What are Hieroglyphs?

Hieroglyphs are the symbols used by the ancient Egyptians to write their language. The language is called Egyptian. There were a few ways of writing it:

hieroglyphic

hieratic

demotic

Hieratic and demotic were used more for day-to-day purposes. Hieroglyphs were used for important writing, like temple and tomb inscriptions.

There are over 700 hieroglyphs. Every one is supposed to be a picture of something.

Some it is easy to tell what they are:		= an owl
or:		= a viper
But some it's hard to tell:		= a loaf of bread

For the alphabetic hieroglyphs, click here to see a chart showing what they are all supposed to be.

The main kinds of pictures are:

birds

other animals

trees and plants

people

parts of the body

parts of buildings

tools and weapons

household items

ships and parts of ships

religious items

can you see 3 animals and 2 plants?

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