A hieroglyph (Greek for "sacred carving") is a character of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the ancient Egyptian writing system. Because the ancient Egyptian writing system is a logographic script which employs pictographic symbols to represent words or sounds, other scripts which have characteristics that are reminiscent of the ancient Egyptian script are sometimes also called "hieroglyphs". In Neoplatonism, especially during the Renaissance, a "hieroglyph" was an artistic representation of an esoteric idea, which Neoplatonists believed actual Egyptian hieroglyphs to be. The word hieroglyphics refers to a hieroglyphic script.
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