Egyptian Writing

Egyptians used hieroglyphics as their form of writing. Hieroglyphics are made of symbols that indicate sounds, objects, or concepts. Ancient Egyptians used this form of writing to record important economic, administrative, and royal information. Priests and scribes often carved hieroglyphics on tall stone columns called obelisks. Moreover, hieroglyphics were the more formal version of Egyptian written language, and were used for religious purposes.
Take a moment to examine the individual elements, or hieroglyphs, shown in this image. Do any of the designs look familiar to you?
While many of the items in the image may seem easy to interpret, depending on the way in which it was presented, a hieroglyph may have had multiple meanings to the Egyptians.
In addition to hieroglyphics, Egyptians also used simpler forms of script for everyday writing, called demotic or hieratic. How is this similar to written communication today? Like the Egyptians, most peoples use a written script for daily purposes, and a cursive alphabet for more formal purposes.