Massive Hieroglyphs Found in Egyptian Desert May Be the World’s First Cosmic Message

Carved into rock near the village of El-Khawy in southern Egypt, a massive line of ancient hieroglyphs has just been brought to light by archaeologists. They are the oldest large-scale line of ancient symbols ever found, and they seem to deliver a message about royal power and the universe.

The carvings date back over five millennia and were meant to be seen. Set along a route linking early Egyptian cities, the symbols were big, bold, and hard to miss, something like a prehistoric billboard. According to the research team from Yale University and the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, they give us a rare look at how Egypt’s first writers connected rulers with the cosmic order.

Hieroglyphs That Speak Loud and Clear

The carvings show four main symbols: a bull’s head on a pole and three birds, two storks facing away from each other, with a bald ibis in between. As stated by Yale archaeologist John Darnell, these symbols were huge, about 70 centimeters tall, and carved into the rock in a bright color that popped against the darker stone around them.

“This newly discovered rock art site of El-Khawy preserves some of the earliest—and largest—signs from the formative stages of the hieroglyphic script and provides evidence for how the ancient Egyptians invented their unique writing system,” he said.

Darnell explains that it’s like seeing a regular message on your screen, and then suddenly it switches to billboard size. The bull’s head seems to point to royal power, while the bird trio probably relates to the solar cycle. These hieroglyphs may have symbolized the king’s role in keeping the universe in balance.

Meant To Be Seen and Understood

What’s striking about this “billboard” is how public it is. The spot where it was carved was right along a well-traveled route. As mentioned in the statement, the message would’ve been seen by people moving between cities like Elkab, and it’s likely they could understand at least part of it.

This kind of public communication, big, visible, and symbolic, shows that even at this early stage, Egyptian leaders were already using visuals to broadcast power and connect it to the cosmos. The idea of linking the ruler to the sun, the sky, or natural cycles wasn’t new later; it was there from the beginning.

The scale of the discovery left the team “absolutely flabbergasted,” with both the scenes and the single symbols far larger than expected.

An Even Older Story: The Pregnant Elephant

Near the hieroglyphs, the team found something else: a carving of an elephant, with another, smaller elephant drawn inside it. That might not sound huge, but it is. According to Darnell, it’s a super rare way of showing a pregnant animal in ancient Egyptian art. The carving dates back even earlier than the billboard, probably between 4000 and 3500 B.C..

“This discovery isn’t new in the sense that this is the first time that anyone has seen these hieroglyphs; this is the first time that anyone has seen them on such a massive scale.”

Only a few other examples like it are known. One is a vase found at Abydos showing a pregnant hippo. These kinds of drawings tell us that the people who made them were starting to tell stories, to show life, even before writing fully developed.