“Hieroglyphics consisted of pictograpms that depicted objects or beings. These were combined to deignate actual ideas, phonograms denoting sounds and determinatives identifying categories. When the early Egyptian scribes were confronted with words difficut to express in visual form, they devised a rebus, using pictures for sounds, to write the desired word. . . . At the same time they designated a pictorial symbol for every consonant sound and combination of consonants in their speech. . . . By the time of the New Kingdon this remarkably efficient writing system had over seven hundred hieroglyphs. . . .
The design flexibility of hieroglyphics was greatly increased by the choice of writing direction. One started from the direction in which the living creatures were facing. The lines could be written horizontally or vertically, so the designer of an artifact or manuscipt had four choices: left to right horizontlly; left to right in vertical columns; right to left horizontally; and right to left in vertical columns. Sometimes . . . these design possiblities were combined in one work.”

—Phil Meggs & Alston Purvis, Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, 2006.