Writing System/Alphabet
Hieroglyphics is part of a system of picture writing. Pictograms are pictures that represent actual objects. Each picture took on a unique sound formed to make sounds and ideas. There are 700 different hieroglyphic signs. About 1% of the population knew how to read and write. For business contracts scribes used a writing called hieratic. Pictograms and ideograms represented motion. Phonograms represent one, two, or three consonants. Pictures took on sounds to form thoughts and ideas. Egyptian writing can be divided into two classes, phonograms and ideograms. Later, pictures came to represent ideas, so that if you saw a sun in a scene, it might not symbolize only the sun, but also daytime, light or warmth. These are called ideograms. Tomb writing tells about the individual in the tomb. Hieroglyphics developed into hieratic in which figures are joined to make sentences and words. Hieroglyphic writing is also divided into Old ,Middle ,and New Egyptian.
References
I found my information at:
Nova Dateline Adventure. January 29,2001. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/hieroglyph/hieroglyph4.html
