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1 Hieroglyphs Were a Secret Code Created to Conceal the Wisdom of Ancient Egypt What People Think Happened The Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system is arguably one of the most beautiful writing systems ever developed. Egyptian hieroglyphs were indi- vidual pictures that, when finely executed, were tiny, individual works of art. Egyptian hieroglyphs were not only used as a means of communi- cation but also as decoration. Hieroglyphs were normally used in mon- umental contexts, such as tombs, temples, statues, and stelas, and the arrangement of the hieroglyphic inscriptions owed much to the desire to present an appealing, symmetrical appearance. Hieroglyphic inscriptions could be written in rows or columns, to be read from either left to right or right to left, depending on the need of the composition. Because of its pictorial nature, many observers ignorant of the principles of the hier- oglyphic writing system assume that the hieroglyphic script is “picture writing,” or a pictographic script. In a pictographic script, the individ- ual signs communicate by means of depicting the individual or object to which they refer. Once knowledge of the real significance of the hiero- glyphic signs was lost, it was simple for the casual observer to assume that a script consisting of images of people, animals, plants, and things was communicating through pictures and concepts, not through words. Since the meaning of these images and the messages they were meant to convey