Most people don't understand that Mdw Ntr and hieroglyphs are similar words; they are just two different languages. It is the same thing as water and its Spanish equalivant agua. In the beginning Mdw Ntr signs were used for human beings to understand the divine nature of everything around them, their natural world and spiritual world. Pictogram is the simpler term for hieroglyphs. Scribes could easily make these records by drawing a picture of a cow or a boat followed by a number. As the language became more complex more pictures were needed. Eventually the language consisted more than 750 individual signs.

The word hieroglyphs, a Greek word that means "sacred carving," is a symbol language that was used to communicate information on temples and monuments. It could be written with pen and ink on papyrus or painted or carved into stone. It was carefully drawn to make the signs as accurate as possible.

Mdw Ntr appeared about 5,000 years ago. The Kemetians first used Mdw Ntr for inscriptions carved or painted on temple walls. This form of writing was also used on tombs, sheets of papyrus, wooden boards covered with a stucco wash, potsherds, and fragments of limestone.

Mdw Ntr is written in columns or in horizontal lines. It is commonly read from right to left and from top to bottom. Sometimes, the script is read from left to right. The reader can find out which way to read it by looking at the animal and human figures. If they face towards the left of the text you read from left to right. If a living figure faces right such as an animal or a human, then the text should be read from right to left.

To the right you see a clear explanation of which way you should read Mdw Ntr.

The text below is read from left to right because the faces in the humans and animals are turned to the left.

There are six historical periods of Mdw Ntr writing and they are: