the.com/hieroglyph
a bird, a foot, and an eye that together mean nothing like a bird, a foot, or an eye.
means a picture-symbol from ancient egyptian writing that can stand for an object, a sound, or an idea, often all three depending on context.
from from greek hieros (sacred) plus glyphein (to carve) — coined because greeks saw them only on temple walls and assumed they were priestly code, not everyday script.
actually phoneticmany glyphs represent sounds, not just pictures
decoded viathe rosetta stone gave the same text three ways
used forover 3,000 years, from 3200 bce onward
total signsroughly 700 in classical use, thousands later
for instance
rosetta stone — 1799 discovery cracked the code, decree of 196 bce
eye of horus — protection symbol, also used as a fraction glyph
ankh — life symbol found on tomb walls across egypt
champollion 1822 — jean-francois champollion announced the full decipherment