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Hieroglyphics were not for every day writing as you might think. Hieroglyphics were only used for very special purposes and mainly used for tomb decorating. They were also used to write about how perfect the pharaoh would be in his afterlife. Every time someone was buried, his or her name had to be written in hieroglyphics in their tomb so their ka would be able to recognize them.
Hieroglyphs, the every-day writing of Ancient Egypt, were used in many different ways. They could be used with an alphabetic sign that represented a single sound, or syllabic sounds that represented two or three letters. Word signs were pictures of the objects mentioned, and there was also determanitives, which were little extras added on to help the reader understand the meaning better. Egyptians took most of the vowels for granted, so they were not represented in any way. Hieroglyphs could be written from top to bottom, left to right, or right to left.
Scribes were the only people who knew how to read and write and jotted things down when they needed to. They were often called the "eyes and ears" of the kingdom. Scribes had to be experts on hieroglyphs and hieroglyphics so they could write things down quickly.
The Rosetta Stone was the link to deciphering hieroglyphs and hieroglyphics. The stone was finally deciphered by Jean Francois on September 14, 1822. The stone had three writings on it. They were Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, and Demotic.
