Hieroglyphics were an Egyptian visual language system. The earliest known hieroglyphs date from 3100 BCE and were in use for over three thousand years. Hieroglyphics were pictograms that depicted objects or beings. The pictograms were combined to represent ideas, phonograms denoting sounds, and determinatives identifying categories. (Determinatives are words that clarify the nouns they refer to, like **our** home, *a* story, *this* note). For words that were difficult to communicate visually, Egyptian scribes devised a rebus, using pictures of objects to represent syllables that sound like the names of the objects being drawn. For example, to write the word catalog, you might split it into cat-a-log, and draw a picture of a cat and a log. Close enough. The Egyptians also designates a pictogram for every consonant sound and combination of consonants. Citations Meggs, P. B., & Purvis, A. W. (2016). Meggs' history of graphic Design, 6th edition. In _[[Meggs' History of Graphic Design]]_ (6th ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ---- Created: February 22, 2021 Last Modified: February 23, 2021