Hieroglyphics

In Ancient Egypt hieroglyphics were developed in 3400 B.C. Hieroglyphics represented, pictograms, objects, ideas, phonoglyphs, and sounds of objects and words. In Egyptian language, the words came from prefixes, suffixes, and vowels. To specify the meaning of symbols, it included one or more determinatives*. Hieroglyphics were used to represent the names of a man. Some hieroglyphics were painted, carved, or written with blunt reed pens on papyrus. Hieroglyphics were read from top to bottom. In the 6th century demotic was a form of cursive that was used for all purposes. After that no one found hieroglyphics until the Rosetta Stone was deciphered which was in the 19th century.

 Ideograms are idea-signs where each picture stands for the object represented, or for an idea that is closely connected with the object.

Specific words could be written using only sound signs or only idea signs or they could be written as a combination of both. It was common to use one or more idea-signs at the end of a word to give the general meaning of the word. These were called determinatives.