Egyptians wrote with beautiful picture signs called hieroglyphs. But writing was a special skill. The people who learned it were called scribes, and they kept Egypt running.
Key idea
Scribes learned to read and write at school. They wrote with a thin reed pen, black and red ink, and sheets of papyrus, a paper made from a river plant.
Why it works
A big kingdom needs records: how much grain each farm grew, how many workers came to work, what the taxes were, what the king ordered. Scribes wrote all of it down. Learning took years, so boys (and a few girls) started young, copying signs again and again on flakes of stone and broken pottery, which were cheaper than papyrus.
Worked example: Black and red
A scribe's palette held two cakes of ink, black and red. What was the red ink for?
- Black, made from soot, was used for most of the writing.
- Red, made from a red earth called ochre, made some words stand out.
Answer: For headings and important words, so they stood out.
Common mistake
Thinking everyone could read. Only a small share of Egyptians, mostly scribes, could read and write. An old Egyptian school text tells students that a scribe's life is better than any other job, so they should study hard!
The papyrus plant grew in the marshes. Its stems were cut into thin strips, laid in two layers crosswise, pressed and dried into sheets.