When writing numbers in ancient Egyptian, do the “ones” go on the left or on the right?
Egyptians wrote from right to left, left to right, and top to bottom depending upon the text, the placement of the text, space available, etc., and on occasion the same text will display all the orientations (especially tomb inscriptions). The way to determine whether to read left to right or right to left is to look at which way the signs are facing. The signs face towards the beginning of the line. In other words, signs that represent something with a head, like the numerous bird signs, the head looks to the beginning of the line. Other signs that have a distinct orientation also face towards the beginning of the line, but I’ve always found it easier to just look for things with heads instead of trying to remember which way the reed leaf is supposed to face. With the numbers, it’s a little more challenging, since the 1 and 10 don’t really have an obvious front. 100 sort of does – the tail of the little curli-que thing points away from the front; 1000, the top of the plant that looks
