hieroglyfijärjestelmä

Hieroglyfijärjestelmä, often referred to as hieroglyphs, was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians. It combined logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements in a system that was highly pictorial. The term "hieroglyph" comes from the Greek words hieros ("sacred") and glyphein ("to carve"). The ancient Egyptians themselves called their script medu netjer, meaning "the god's words," reflecting its divine origins in their beliefs.

Hieroglyphic writing was primarily used for religious texts, monumental inscriptions on tombs and temples, and official decrees. It was a visually complex system, with individual signs representing objects, sounds, or abstract concepts. The direction of reading could vary, being written from left to right, right to left, or top to bottom, with the direction of figures indicating the starting point. Over time, simpler and cursive scripts, hieratic and demotic, developed for everyday use.

The decipherment of hieroglyphs was a major achievement of Egyptology, largely credited to Jean-François Champollion in the 1820s. His work, building upon earlier efforts and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, unlocked the understanding of ancient Egyptian language and culture. The hieroglyphic system remained in use for over 3,500 years before eventually falling out of use in the late Roman period.