Hieroglyphics are the picture-writing system the ancient Egyptians invented over 5,000 years ago. The name comes from Greek words meaning βsacred carvings,β because the Egyptians often used them on temple walls. There are more than 700 different signs, and they include drawings of birds, snakes, eyes, hands, and tiny human figures.
Each symbol stood for a sound, an object, or a whole idea. Reading them was tricky because they could be written left to right, right to left, or even top to bottom. The way the bird and animal pictures faced was a hint about which direction to read in.
For about 1,400 years, nobody could read hieroglyphics. Then in 1799, French soldiers found a slab called the Rosetta Stone that had the same message written in three languages: hieroglyphics, an everyday Egyptian script, and Greek. A French scholar named Champollion cracked the code in 1822, and we have been reading ancient Egyptian texts ever since.
