Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphs means "sacred drawings" in Greek, and that's pretty much what hieroglyphs are. The Egyptians used them to write with from the beginning of anybody being able to write, around 3000 BC, down to about 300 AD. Between about 3000 BC and 300 BC, the Egyptians used hieroglyphics for all different kinds of writing. But after the Greeks conquered Egypt under Alexander the Great, people began to use the Greek alphabet to write the Egyptian language. Then hieroglyphs were only used for religious things , things that were too holy for the ordinary Greek alphabet, which is why they are called "sacred-drawings." By 300 AD, as people converted to Christianity, there was no longer any religious use for hieroglyphs, and they went out of use altogether.
Hieroglyphs are basically drawings of familiar objects, simplified to make them easier to draw. At first people just drew a dog or a house or a sheep; for example some early writing is just a picture of a sheep with five lines by it to mean "five sheep." Then people began to combine pictures, so that a picture of a sheep means the sound "sh"and can be combined with a picture of an owl "hoot" to mean the word "shoot," for example (only in Egyptian of course, not in English really!).
Hieroglyphs are basically drawings of familiar objects, simplified to make them easier to draw. At first people just drew a dog or a house or a sheep; for example some early writing is just a picture of a sheep with five lines by it to mean "five sheep." Then people began to combine pictures, so that a picture of a sheep means the sound "sh"and can be combined with a picture of an owl "hoot" to mean the word "shoot," for example (only in Egyptian of course, not in English really!).