how are individual characters represented by a computer
Character (computing) Computers and communication equipment represent characters using a character encoding that assigns each character to something — an integer quantity represented by a sequence of digits, typically — that can be stored or transmitted through a network. Two examples of usual encodings are ASCII and the UTF-8 encoding for Unicode. While most character encodings map characters to numbers and/or bit sequences, Morse code instead represents characters using a series of electrical impulses of varying length.
Egyptian hieroglyphs Egyptian hieroglyphs (/ˈhaɪərəˌɡlɪf, -roʊ-/[2][3]) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters.[4][5] Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing; Meroitic was a late derivation from demotic.