Petroglyph vs. Hieroglyph

Petroglyphnoun

(archaeology) A rock carving, especially one made in prehistoric times.

Petroglyphnoun

a rock carving, especially a prehistoric one.

Petroglyph

A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as , , or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images.

Hieroglyphnoun

An element of an ideographic (hieroglyphic) writing system.

Hieroglyphnoun

(informal) Any obscure or baffling symbol.

Hieroglyphverb

To represent by hieroglyphs.

Hieroglyphnoun

A sacred character; a character used in picture writing, as of the ancient Egyptians, Mexicans, etc. Specifically, in the plural, the picture writing of the ancient Egyptian priests. It is made up of three, or, as some say, four classes of characters: first, the hieroglyphic proper, or figurative, in which the representation of the object conveys the idea of the object itself; second, the ideographic, consisting of symbols representing ideas, not sounds, as an ostrich feather is a symbol of truth; third, the phonetic, consisting of symbols employed as syllables of a word, or as letters of the alphabet, having a certain sound, as a hawk represented the vowel a.

Hieroglyphnoun

Any character or figure which has, or is supposed to have, a hidden or mysterious significance; hence, any unintelligible or illegible character or mark.

Hieroglyphnoun

writing that resembles hieroglyphics (usually by being illegible)

Hieroglyphnoun

a writing system using picture symbols; used in ancient Egypt

Hieroglyphnoun

a stylized picture of an object representing a word, syllable, or sound, as found in ancient Egyptian and certain other writing systems

Hieroglyphnoun

a secret or incomprehensible symbol

Hieroglyph

A hieroglyph (Greek for ) was a character of the ancient Egyptian writing system. Logographic scripts that are pictographic in form in a way reminiscent of ancient Egyptian are also sometimes called .