Medu-Netjer — Hieroglyphs as 'the God's Words'
Egyptians called their script 'the god's words' — signs powerful enough that some were mutilated so they couldn't come alive.
Also: medu-netjer · mdw-nṯr · medu netjer · the god's words · hieroglyphs · sacred script · divine words · power of writing
Egyptians called their monumental script mdw-nṯr, 'the words of the god' — what the Greeks later rendered as 'sacred carvings,' hieroglyphs. Writing was held to be of divine origin, traditionally the gift of Thoth, and the signs themselves carried power: to write a thing could help bring it about, to inscribe a name could sustain a person, and dangerous signs were sometimes mutilated in tombs so their pictured creatures could do no harm. Hieroglyphs were thus not just a way of recording words but a sacred, creative, and effective form of speech in stone.
In short
The Egyptian conception of the hieroglyphic script as mdw-nṯr, 'the god's words' — a sacred, divinely-originated writing (linked to Thoth) understood as creative and efficacious, not merely a neutral system for recording speech.
Where it’s found
Egyptian designation of the script (mdw-nṯr) and the Thoth-writing tradition; attested across pharaonic texts and inscriptions
How the idea developed across Egypt
The term mdw-nṯr ('the god's words') for the script is used from early in Egyptian history; the association of writing with Thoth and the belief in the efficacy of written/inscribed signs (e.g. apotropaic mutilation of hieroglyphic signs in some tombs, the power of the written name) run throughout pharaonic culture. The English 'hieroglyph' is from Greek hieroglyphika ('sacred carvings').
Concerns the sacred status and efficacy of the hieroglyphic script specifically (mdw-nṯr), as distinct from the god Thoth (egy-thoth-writing) and the scribal profession (egy-scribe-status). The 'creative/efficacious writing' idea is well grounded in Egyptian practice but should be stated as Egyptian belief, not asserted as fact.