Hieroglyphs were used in a variety of contexts, including religious rituals, royal decrees, and funerary texts. They were also used to decorate temples, tombs, and other monuments. Hieroglyphs were written in vertical or horizontal lines, and they could be read from left to right or right to left.
The Egyptian hieroglyphic system was one of the most complex writing systems ever developed. It contained over 700 distinct characters, and it could be used to express a wide range of ideas. However, hieroglyphs were also very difficult to learn, and only a small number of people were able to read and write them.
The use of hieroglyphs declined after the rise of Christianity in Egypt. By the 4th century AD, hieroglyphs had been replaced by the Coptic alphabet, which was a modified version of the Greek alphabet.