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Where have the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs been found?

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hieroglyphics — hieroglyphic writing Hieroglyphics on a temple wall at Karnak, Egypt.

The earliest known Egyptian hieroglyphs date from the end of the 4th millennium BCE. These ancient inscriptions have been found as annotations incised onto pottery jars and ivory plaques that were deposited in tombs, presumably to identify the deceased.1

While the origins of the script are not precisely known, it appears to have emerged during the late predynastic period, just before 2925 BCE. These early signs were not a primitive form of picture writing; rather, they functioned as phonetic symbols from their inception, likely sharing the same system as later classical hieroglyphs. Although many of these earliest examples remain unreadable, they represent a sophisticated development in communication that eventually expanded into monumental contexts and administrative uses, such as on cylinder seals, by the 1st dynasty.213