Pictograph in the context of "Phono-semantic"

Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; as of 2025, more than 100000 have been identified and included in The Unicode Standard. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning.

The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century BCE in what is now Anyang, Henan, as part of divinations conducted by the Shang dynasty royal house. Character forms were originally ideographic or pictographic in style, but evolved as writing spread across China. Numerous attempts have been made to reform the script, including the promotion of small seal script by the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Clerical script, which had matured by the early Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), abstracted the forms of characters—obscuring their pictographic origins in favour of making them easier to write. Following the Han, regular script emerged as the result of cursive influence on clerical script, and has been the primary style used for characters since. Informed by a long tradition of lexicography, states using Chinese characters have standardized their forms—broadly, simplified characters are used to write Chinese in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia, while traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Gilf Kebir (جلف كبير) (var. Gilf al-Kebir, Jilf al Kabir, Gilf Kebir Plateau) is a plateau in the New Valley Governorate of the remote southwest corner of Egypt, and southeast Libya. Its name translates as "the Great Barrier". This 7,770 km (3,000 sq mi) sandstone plateau, roughly the size of Puerto Rico, rises 300 m (980 ft) from the Libyan Desert floor. It is the true heart of the Gilf Kebir National Park.

The name Gilf Kebir was given to the plateau by Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein in 1925, as it had no local name. It is known for its rugged beauty, remoteness, geological interest, and the dramatic cliff paintings-pictographs and rock carvings-petroglyphs which depict an earlier era of abundant animal life and human habitation.

SN 1054, the Crab Supernova, is a supernova that was first observed on c. 10 July [O.S. c. 4 July] 1054, and remained visible until c. 12 April [O.S. c. 6 April] 1056.

The event was recorded in contemporary Chinese astronomy, and references to it are also found in a later (13th-century) Japanese document and in a document from the Islamic world. Furthermore, there are a number of proposed references from European sources recorded in the 15th century, as well as a pictograph associated with the Ancestral Puebloan culture found near the Peñasco Blanco site in New Mexico, United States. The pyramids at Cahokia in the midwestern United States may have been built in response to the supernova's appearance in the sky.

Mi'kmaw hieroglyphic writing or Suckerfish script (Mi'kmawi'simk: Gomgwejui'gasit) was a writing system for the Mi'kmaw language, later superseded by various Latin scripts which are currently in use. Mi'kmaw are a Canadian First Nation whose homeland, called Mi'kma'ki, overlaps much of the Atlantic provinces, specifically all of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and parts of New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.

These glyphs, or gomgwejui'gaqan, although unrelated, followed a prior pictograph and petroglyph tradition, and are logograms, with phonetic elements used alongside, including logographic, alphabetic, and ideographic information. As petroglyphs and pictographs were the writing system of Hand Talk, a sign language that was the historically most spoken language on the continent, it is unknown to academia what, if any, connection there is between sign language and Suckerfish script. The gomgwejui'gasultijig take their name from the gomgwej (plural: gomgwejg) or sucker fish whose tracks are visibly left on the muddy river bottom. Mi'kmawi'sit uses several spelling systems, and the script is consequently sometimes called komqwejwi'kasikl or gomgwejui'gas'gl.

Mazinaw Rock is a 100-metre (330 ft) high cliff in the Addington Highlands, just 30 kilometres (18.6 mi) north of Kaladar, with the closest settlement being Cloyne in south-central Ontario, Canada. It stretches for 1.5 kilometres (0.9 mi) along Mazinaw Lake, and is a landmark in the Bon Echo Provincial Park that draws the attention of many campers and cottagers all over Canada. The lake's depth reaches 145 metres (476 ft), making it the third deepest lake in Ontario besides the Great Lakes. The rock is composed of granite and black dykes. The quality of the rock varies from good on the more popular routes to bad on the less used routes.

The rock is credited in giving the name to Bon Echo Provincial Park, because it is responsible for the large echo that is unmistakable during thunderstorms and fireworks displays. Bon Echo is French for "good echo". The face of the rock is adorned with over 260 Indigenous pictographs. This gives it the largest collection of visible pictographs in Canada. Painted in red ochre on rock, they seem to depict animals—possibly creatures from Anishinābe mythology. These works may have been made by shamans, whose healing and prophetic powers are often represented in this way. Equally, they may also have served as warnings of territoriality. The pictographs are among the earliest surviving artworks in the Ottawa region.