Read this excerpt from The Riddle of the Rosetta Stone by James Cross Giblin. The schooling of a scribe began at age five or six and was usually completed by age sixteen. Through long, hard hours of practice, the student learned to paint or carve more than six hundred different hieroglyphs. He also learned how to write in hieratic, a flowing form of hieroglyphic writing in which the individual symbols were joined. Based on the context clues, a scribe can be defined as someone who builds. teaches. writes. preaches.