They continued this for 3.5 millennia. The last dated hieroglyphics were from 394 CE. In 1799, the Rosetta stone was discovered and Hieroglyphics were finally able to be translated. The development of Papyrus, a paperlike substrate for manuscripts, was a major step forward in visual communication. Papyrus is made by peeling away the rind, and then layering the inner piths, soaking them, and hammering them into a single sheet. Egyptians were the first to produce illustrated manuscripts.
Alphabets.
For centuries, those who had the ability to gain literacy was small. It often required long, hard study to master and access to such knowledge enabled them with great power and authority. The word "alphabet" comes from the Greek words Alpha and Beta. Hieroglyphics and other symbols were soon replaced by easily learned elementary signs. One of the most perplexing relics of the Minoan civilization is the Phaistos Disk, unearth in Crete in 1908. It displays pictographic forms on both sides in spiral bands. Its maker and use is still unknown. The Phoenicians helped link settlements throughout the Mediterranean region; influences and ideas were absorbed from other areas, including Egypt and Mesopotamia. Sui Generis is a writing script developed in Byblos, the oldest Phoenician city-state; it used pictographic signs devoid of any remaining pictorial meaning. Acrophonic means a pictorial symbol or hieroglyph was used to stand for the initial sound of the depicted object. Ras Shamra, a true Semitic alphabetical script, was found on clay tablets inscribed around 1500 BCE, it used 30 cuneiform-like characters to represent elementary consonant sounds. Its signs were composed of wedge-shaped marks. The oldest Phoenician inscription is located on the lid of the sarcophagus of the Byblos king Ahiram. The Aramaic alphabet is a major early derivation from the North Semitic script. The gestural curves of the Aramaic alphabet evolved into Hebrew and Arabic alphabets.