Interesting Fact: The Egyptians did not write vowels and did not use any punctuation.

What is Egyptian writing called?

The Egyptian writing called hieroglyphics used pictures to represent different objects, actions, sound or ideas. There were more than 700 hieroglyphs. Some pictures stood for whole words.

Write like an Egyptian, see you name in hieroglyphs

What does the word hieroglyph mean?

Hieroglyphs is made from two Greek words:

• hieros meaning holy
• glyphe meaning writing

So hieroglyph means holy writing.

How do we know how to read hieroglyphics ?

This writing was uncovered by the Rosetta Stone. Hieroglyphics uses small pictures which represent the sound of the object or an idea associated with the object.

How do you know which way to read Hieroglyphs?

You need to look closely at the hieroglyphs to find out. It depends on which way the people or animals are facing. For example, if an animal hieroglyph faces right, you read from right to left. If it faces left, you read from left to right (the same way that we do). Just to confuse you, sometimes they read Hieroglyphs from top to bottom.

What did Ancient Egyptians write on?

Hieroglyphs were written on papyrus reed, which is a water or marsh plant, with tall straight hollow stems.The reeds were flattened, dried, and stuck together to make pages.

The Egyptians also carved hieroglyphs onto stone and painted them on the walls of the tombs.

What did Ancient Egyptians use to write with?

Egyptian writing was done with pen and ink on fine paper (papyrus).

Egyptian "pens" were thin, sharp reeds, which they would dip in ink to write with.

The ink and paint came from plants which they crushed and mixed with water.

Where did the Ancient Egyptians use writing?

They used writing in a variety of places including in scribe schools, on tomb walls, in fields, in temples, at war and in the government. Find out more

Further information

Hieroglyphs - discover more

Find out more about writing with Hieroglyphs

Ancient Egyptian Writing - Excellent website

Language
Writing was very important to the Egyptians. The Egyptians had two different writings. Hieroglyphics was one of them.

The Hieroglyphic Alphabet Translator
Type in letters and see the letters as they would have been written as Egyptian letters.