The ancient Egyptians are obviously well known for their construction of the pyramids, but they are also well known for their innovation in communication: Hieroglyphics. First emerging in 3500 BC, hieroglyphics had over 700 characters and combined text and pictures as a means of communication.

It all started in 1799 when French captain Pierre Bouchard discovered the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone was a rock which was inscribed with three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic script, and ancient Greek. It was originally a piece of political propaganda created by Ptolemy V to publicly state his claim to be the pharaoh of Egypt. The Rosetta Stone became the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics because all three scripts conveyed the same message. This was huge because without being able to understand the hieroglyphics, we would not be able to understand or properly study the 3000 year ancient Egyptian history.

In ancient Egypt, not everyone learned to read and write hieroglyphics. Only the scribes were taught to become literate. Scribes recorded the everyday happenings in ancient Egypt. Their jobs consisted of writing letters, recording statistics, and calculating yields. To become a scribe, one went through tough schooling for years, and usually were children of scribes. Almost everything we know about about ancient Egypt came from the work of the scribes.

Hieroglyphs are divided into three categories based on appearance: hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. Hieroglyphic was written on stones and large monuments (such as the pyramids), hieratic was used on paintings and manuscripts, and demotic was a later form of hieratic emerging around 600 BC.

By the 4th century, hieroglyphs became a less  popular form of writing and few Egyptians knew how to read them. After the closing of all non-Christian monuments in 391 AD by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, the use of hieroglyphs ceased altogether.