Hieroglyphic Writing

Egyptian hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphs from the Great Hypostyle Hall in Karnak (Seti I, 13th century BC)
Type	Logography usable as an abjad
Languages	Egyptian language
Time period	c. 3200 BC – AD 400
Parent systems	(Proto-writing) Egyptian hieroglyphs
Child systems	Hieratic, Demotic, Coptic, Meroitic, Proto-Sinaitic
Direction	Left-to-right
ISO 15924	Egyp, 050
Unicode alias	Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Unicode range	U+13000–U+1342F

Egyptian hieroglyphs (/ˈhaɪrəˌɡlɪf, -roʊ-/) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters.Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing; Meroitic was a late derivation from demotic.

The use of hieroglyphic writing arose from proto-literate symbol systems in the Early Bronze Age, around the 32nd century BC (Naqada III), with the first decipherable sentence written in the Egyptian language dating to the Second Dynasty (28th century BC). Egyptian hieroglyphs developed into a mature writing system used for monumental inscription in the classical language of the Middle Kingdom period; during this period, the system made use of about 900 distinct signs. The use of this writing system continued through the New Kingdom and Late Period, and on into the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, extending into the 4th century AD.