The cursive form of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs used extensively on papyrus was called hieratic. It was written mainly with ink and a reed brush, making it much faster and more practical than carefully carved or painted monumental hieroglyphs.
Hieratic developed during the early history of Egyptian writing, around the late fourth millennium BCE. Scribes used it for administrative records, private letters, legal documents, medical recipes, mathematical texts and literary works. It could also record religious texts, especially in later periods.
The name comes from the Greek word for “priestly,” because hieratic remained associated with religious writing after the more everyday script Demotic became widespread. Hieratic was normally written from right to left and used ligatures and highly abbreviated signs.
Hieratic is often confused with cursive hieroglyphs. Cursive hieroglyphs retained recognizable hieroglyphic forms and were common in religious manuscripts such as the Book of the Dead. Hieratic was a more fully cursive script with its own conventions. Around 650 BCE, Demotic began to replace it for many routine documents.