Hieroglyphics or the drawing of pictographs

  As explained before, this was the earliest method by which Chinese characters were designed and from which the other methods were subsequently developed. For instance, the sun was written as , the moon as , water as , the cow as and so on. These picture-words underwent a gradual evolution over the centuries until the pictographs changed into "square characters," some simplified by losing certain strokes and others made more complicated but, as a whole, from irregular drawings they became stylized forms.

        Sun

     Moon

        Mountain

        Water

         Bird