What are hieroglyphs?
Hieroglyphs – literal meaning “sacred carvings” – were used as a writing system in Ancient Egypt and are a combination of pictograms, ideograms, and phonograms, otherwise known as Rebus. An example of a modern-day Rebus is shown below:
When did hieroglyphs begin?
The first Egyptian hieroglyphs are recorded to appear with the beginning the first Egyptian dynasty, which was created by King Menes. However, there are artifacts of early Egyptian writing before hieroglyphs were fully developed, as seen below.
Hieroglyphs were initially displayed on jars and plaques, then eventually developed to being used on temple walls and monuments. Additionally, they were very difficult to write with, hence how walls were a more common canvas. Hieroglyphs lasted for a long time, in fact, for almost 3500 years!
The hieroglyph above is displayed on an obelisk in Luxor, Egypt, and as you can see, there is an oval frame surrounding the images. These frames are called cartouches, which usually surround the royal names of ancient pharaohs and places, and began to be used starting in the Fourth Dynasty (2575-2465 BCE).
How did hieroglyphs pave the way for the world’s first alphabets?
As trade began to bloom, hieroglyphs evolved into the world’s first alphabets after spreading to the Mediterranean coast by traders. One form of writing hieroglyphs evolved to is Coptic around the 2nd or 3rd century, with some influence from Greece.
Why have I chosen to talk about Hieroglyphs?
The reason why I chose this topic is because hieroglyphics have always been incredibly intriguing to me, just as much as the history of Ancient Egypt itself! Hieroglyphs hold mystery and beauty to them and the symbols are incredibly creative and detailed. The development and use of them display the evolution of writing systems as a whole and how it inspired other future writing systems to be created.
Extra sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/hieroglyphic-writing
https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/egypt/egcw02e.html