An ancient Egyptian writing system in which pictures were used to represent ideas and sounds is called what?

• A. Cuneiform
• B. Alphabet
• C. Hieroglyphics
• D. Pictograms

Answer: (C)

Picture-based writing that conveys both ideas and sounds is the hallmark of hieroglyphics. In ancient Egypt, signs could represent concrete objects or concepts (logograms) and also spell out sounds or syllables with phonetic signs. This combination lets scribes write not only pictures for ideas but also pronounce words, names, and phrases, giving a flexible system beyond simple pictures. Hieroglyphics also used elements called determinatives to clarify meaning, and the signs could be arranged in various directions. This makes it distinct from cuneiform (a different ancient script), a purely Alphabet (one symbol per phoneme), or simple pictograms that don’t include phonetic use. So the described writing system is hieroglyphics.