This word, of Greek extraction, means “sacred carvings,” given to the
sculptures in the supposition that all such characters were of religious
import, and known only to the priests of ancient Egypt. The meaning of
the characters had been lost for hundreds of years, and the word
“hieroglyphics” had long become proverbial for mysteries and
undecipherable puzzles, when a keen-eyed Frenchman put into the hands of
scholars the clew to their translation.