The beginning of literacy is a process that has developed over a great number of centuries.
hieros – sacred, glypho – inscriptions. (Greek)
Hieroglyphs are most commonly associated with Ancient Egyptians. They believed that hieroglyphics writing was a work of God. The earliest known examples of writing in Egypt are said to be around 3400 B.C. The hieroglyphic script was mainly used for illustrating on the walls of tombs and temples, monumental inscriptions.
Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Photo: http://imc.mbhs.edu
Hieratic is a more cursive form of hieroglyphs and they are both closely related. It was written by hand and its evolution is a result of a quick attempt of drawing signs in a simpler form on papyrus (papyrus is a type of paper which is thin and is made from the pith of a papyrus plant), with the use of a reed brush. Hieratic was mainly used for religious writings, literature, wisdom texts, etc. Basically, Hieratic was used for texts which contents were more important than their appearance. Same as hieroglyphs, it could be written in rows and columns, but over time, it became standardized into writing it only in rows from right to left. The fact of their development being one from another is unknown but I can say that they are both not just beautiful, but powerful and influencial as well.
Hieratic on papyrus sheet
Papyrus sheet
Demotic writing is an even more cursive type of writing that Hieratic. Its development led to it not being able to resemble visually the concept it represented. It was used in administrative context rather than religious context like Hieratic. Demotic writing was used until about 400 AD when the Coptic alphabet replaced the use of all three scripts – Hieroglyphic, Hieratic and Demotic. It is important to be noted that through time, while the tree types were developing, none of them replaced the use of the others, because they were each used in different context.
Demotic writing
With its history going back to the Hellenistic period, The Coptic alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet and was developed from the Demotic script. It is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language.
Coptic alphabet
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