Hieroglyphics: Writing was very important to the Egyptians. The Egyptians had two different writings. Hieroglyphics was one of them. Another one was hiems, which was a sacred Greek writing. The Egyptians would write the Hieroglyphics from right to left or left to right. The symbols were very easy to find though. They would face towards the direction where they were beginning. They wrote the writings in lines or columns. They would write Greek writing on buildings such as temple walls, pyramids, obelisk, and public monuments. They also wrote on furniture, coffins, and sarcophagus. They were to learn more than 3,000 symbols or characters. They would write characters top to bottom and right to left. They would use a plant called a papyrus, which was a reed-like plant that grew in the water. Also, they used linen. Look below to find the steps on which they make the paper. A person that took records of Egypt was called a scribe. A scribe was used for many jobs such as recording and reading. They were very important to Egypt so they were very well treated. Scribes took more than 3 years in apprenticing. Another fact about scribes was that only boys could become scribes. Writing was not with the alphabet, like ours, but with a symbol or a character. For example, an eagle represented lower case "a" in our alphabet. Pictures were used too. These pictures were called Hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics were used in tombs to talk about the pharaoh. Also, they tell what would happen if you stole or came with a bad heart. On one tomb, it could say that thunder will shock you or the gods would curse you. The gods, they believed, had an animal shaped head and a human body. Hathor had a cow's head, but a human body. How did we figure this mysterious language out? Archeologist that studied Greek came upon a stone called The Rosetta Stone. The stone had three different languages, Greek, Egyptian writing, and an Egyptian sort of cursive. Archeologists would then study the Greek, the part which they understood, and match the Egyptian writing. (Example: unknown: a b c d e f g. American: a b c d e f g. A in our language would be a in the unknown language!)

STEPS TO MAKING PAPER OUT OF

PAPYRUS

#1: First, they would pick a plant and cut the outer green part.

#2: Next, they took the inner part of the papyrus and cut it into even pieces.

#3: Then, they would take a board and stack the even slices on the board.

#4: Last, they would take a stone and rub the slices until they were soft and felt like our paper.