Chapter 4 Section 4-Ancient Egypt

Writing in Ancient Egypt was done using hieroglyphics which used picture symbols to represent sounds.

They wrote on papyrus which was a long-lasting, paper-like material made from reeds. They pressed the layers of reeds together by pounding them. The papyrus was rolled into scrolls. Scribes wrote on the papyrus with brushes and ink.

Hieroglyphics used more than 600 symbols, which were mostly pictures of objects. Each symbol represented one or more sounds in the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphics could be written horizontally or vertically. They could be written from left to right or right to left.

For a long time no one could read hieroglyphics. In 1799 a French soldier found the Rosetta Stone and gave it to historians. This helped historians read hieroglyphics.

Papyrus did not decay in Egypt's dry climate so many of the texts survived! The Book of the Dead that tells about the afterlife is one such text that survived.