The word hieroglyph (Greek for sacred writing) has a longer history in English, dating from an early use in an English to Italian dictionary published by John Florio in 1598, referencing the complex and mysterious characters of the Egyptian alphabet.[2] The word glyph first came to widespread European attention with the engravings and lithographs from Frederick Catherwood's drawings of undeciphered glyphs of the Maya civilization in the early 1840s.[3]