The Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing System Ancient Egyptians used two types of hieroglyphs in various combinations to write words. Phonetic signs indicated sounds and sense signs represented ideas. One phonetic sign could represent as many as three consonants, but vowel sounds were not represented. Sense signs, written at the end of words, placed a word in a category and showed where one word ended and another began. An example in English demonstrates why sense signs were necessary. If only the consonants were written, the combination “h-t” could represent the English words hat, hit, hot, or hut. A sense sign placed at the end would indicate the intended word. For example, a picture of a hat for the word hat, a man in boxing gloves for the word hit, a stove for the word hot, or a house for the word hut.   Although Egyptian hieroglyphs were written most commonly from right to left, they could also be written from left to right or from top to bottom. Because hieroglyphs were used to decorate buildings, paintings, and sculpture in the round or in relief, their placement often dictated which direction they were written. All the animal and human signs face toward the beginning of the inscription. Hieroglyphs were not the only kind of Egyptian writing. Scribes used hieratic, the cursive form of hieroglyphs, for correspondence, stories, and economic texts written on papyrus, wooden boards, or on broken pieces of pottery or stone called ostraka (singular, “ostrakon”).         Back to Introduction African Roots of the Egyptian Language Five Historical Stages of the Egyptian Language Five Forms of the King’s Name How Champollion Deciphered Hieroglyphs