Write in the pattern of ancient Egypt

Watch the video and see how the ancient Egyptians organised what they wrote into columns. We put English letters in rows from left to right, but what does it look like if we put the letters in columns with vertical lines between?

Write this sentence above in vertical columns with lines in between. Go from the bottom to the top.

"THE FIRST PEOPLE TO SEE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WRITING COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHICH WAY IT WAS WRITTEN."

Get someone who has not been studying hieroglyphics to read it. Do they find it easy?

Now you start to get an idea of how difficult it was for archaeologists to work out what the ancient Egyptians were writing.