In the Nile valley, writing evolved from simple pictographs into the striking Egyptian hieroglyphics that are immediately recognizable, even today. Some of the characters serve as pictographs, but others serve as phonetic indicators of a particular sound, in exactly the same way that rebus writing indicates a sound by way of a picture. The same character can serve both functions; the specific meaning is determined by the preceding character, known as the determinant.

Egyptian hieroglyphics were intentionally difficult to read; combining the power inherent in writing and secrecy, the Egyptian priests created an intentionally cryptic written language. So complex was the code behind the characters that it was not until 1822 that they were finally interepreted, when Jean-Francois Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, a massive stone tablet discovered by the French in the Egyptian harbor of Rosetta in 1799. There are three types of writing on the Rosetta Stone: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Demotic, a descendant of Egyptian hieratic writing. Able to translate the Greek, Champollion guessed that perhaps the text was the same for the other scripts, and he was correct.

Hieratic writing evolved as a streamlined variation of heiroglyphics, and was useful for everyday purposes. It became even more popular with the invention and subsequent popularity of ink and papyrus. Papyrus is an aquatic reed which can be harvested, sliced, soaked, woven and then mashed and dried. The result is a yellowish paper-like material, originally used in building houses, much like Tyvek is today, which was discovered to be an excellent material for writing with a brush and ink.

Papyrus has a few disadvantages when compared with paper, which was apparently only invented once, in ancient China, and had yet to reach the western world. Made of organic material, a plant, papyrus decays over time. And it breaks when it is folded, which is why it is traditionally rolled onto itself and then handled and stored as scrolls.

The importance of writing in the Egyptian religion of the time is difficult to overstate. Written language was regarded as the work of the gods, as this excerpt from The Egyptian Book of the Dead attests:

“Thoth speaks:

The ibis and the ink pot—these are blessed. For as the ibis pecks along the bank for a bit of food, so the scribe searches among his thoughts for some truth to tell. All the work is his to speak, its secrets writ down in his heart from the beginning of time, the gods’ words rising upward through his dark belly, seeking light at the edge of his throat. We are made of god stuff, the explosion of stars, particles of light, molded in the presence of gods. The gods are with us.”*

—Paul Dean, Letterforms, 2007

*Awakening Osiris: The Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated by Normandi Ellis, 1988.