Ancient egypt hieroglyphics

Symbols that communicate ideas but not language

Not to be confused with Prewriting.

Proto-writing consists of visible marks communicating limited information.^[1] Such systems emerged from earlier traditions of symbol systems in the early Neolithic, as early as the 7th millennium BC in China and southeastern Europe.

They used ideographic or early mnemonic symbols or both to represent a limited number of concepts, in contrast to true writing systems, which record the language of the writer.^[2]

Paleolithic

Analysis in 2022, led by Bennet Bacon, an amateur archaeologist,^[3] showed that lines, dots and "Y"-like symbols on Upper Palaeolithic cave paintings were used to indicate the mating cycle of animals in a lunar calendar.

The markings found in over 400 caves across Europe were compared to the mating cycles of the animals with which they were associated, showing a correlation with the month of the year in which the animals d