Egyptians developed a system of hieroglyphics as a pictorial written language, probably a couple of hundred years later than did the Mesopotamians, sometime between 3,200 and 3,000 BCE.  The earliest examples were phonetically arranged symbols on small clay tablets which were used to indicate payments for goods.  A German archeologist who works in Egypt a few years ago reported that his team had used radiocarbon dating for items in a particular tomb along the Nile River south of Cairo and came to the conclusion that hieroglyphic inscriptions on some of the pots and bone and ivory found in the tombs were made as early as 3,200 or even 3,400 BCE.  This would mean that it is an open question whether writing was invented first in Mesopotamia or Egypt.  So we continue to learn more as the years go by!!

As you examine both hieroglyphics and cuneiform writing you can see that these are very different from each other.  Scholars believe that these great differences mean that neither learned about writing from the other, but each developed it independently.