Most of the population of ancient Egypt could not read or write and therefore those who could, called scribes, were treated with respect. It was therefore very respectable to be a scribe.
In the hieroglyphic script the word for ‘scribe’, shesh, was written with the sign that depicted the writing equipment of the scribe. Young scribes did not learn hieroglyphs when they started their formal education, but would first be taught hieratic. Then followed many years of copying old stories on ostraca – small fragments of clay pots or just limestone flakes. Only then will the fledgling scribe graduate to papyrus. As so many people were illiterate most villages had a scribe to write letters and draw up legal documents on behalf of the illiterate.