Medu-Netjer — Hieroglyphs as 'the God's Words'

Egyptians called their monumental script mdw-nṯr, 'the words of the god' — what the Greeks later rendered as 'sacred carvings,' hieroglyphs. Writing was held to be of divine origin, traditionally the gift of Thoth, and the signs themselves carried power: to write a thing could help bring it about, to inscribe a name could sustain a person, and dangerous signs were sometimes mutilated in tombs so their pictured creatures could do no harm. Hieroglyphs were thus not just a way of recording words but a sacred, creative, and effective form of speech in stone.