One of the types of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. The pictogram is a sign which directly represents an object. Obviously there are limitations on the use of pictograms, you can not use them to represent abstract words and concepts, and you would need several thousand just to represent all the everyday objects you come in contact with. Whilst many of the standard Gardiner set of around 700 hieroglyphs can be used to represent the object they depict, it is not a common usage – more often they are used as phonograms or sound signs.
Pictogram hieroglyphs are usually easy to spot since they are typically accompanied by the single stroke hieroglyph (Gardiner code Z1). See the examples for mouth (Gardiner code D21), house (Gardiner code O1), and star (Gardiner code N14).
