The Ancient Egyptians did not have pencils and lined paper. They had to make do with what they had around them.

The substitute for a pencil was a brush made out of reeds. The reeds were softened and shaped at the ends.

The Ancient Egyptians still needed ink to write hieroglyphics, so they mixed soot and water to make it. Soot is what is left after you burn most objects.

The substitute for lined paper was very important for the Egyptians. Sure they could write it in stone, but papyrus, the world’s first paper, was nice to have. Papyrus was made by peeling the stem off papyrus reeds and slicing the inner core into thin pieces. After the wet strips of reed were placed in a wooden frame overlapping each other, another layer of wet strips was laid in the other direction. This created a sheet of paper.