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Both hieroglyphic and demotic began to disappear in the third century AD.{{sfn|Loprieno|1995|p=26}} The temple-based priesthoods died out and [[Decline of ancient Egyptian religion|Egypt was gradually converted to Christianity]], and because [[Egyptian Christians]] wrote in the Greek-derived [[Coptic alphabet]], it came to supplant demotic. The [[Graffito of Esmet-Akhom|last hieroglyphic text]] was written by priests at the Temple of [[Isis]] at [[Philae]] in AD{{nbsp}}394, and the last known demotic text was inscribed there in AD{{nbsp}}452.{{sfn|Iversen|1993|pp=26, 30–31}}
Most of history before the first millennium{{nbsp}}BC was recorded in Egyptian scripts or in [[cuneiform]], the writing system of [[Mesopotamia]]. With the loss of knowledge of both these scripts, the only records of the distant past were in limited and distorted sources.{{sfn|Griffith|1951|pp=38–39}} The major Egyptian example of such a source was ''[[Manetho#Aegyptiaca|Aegyptiaca]]'', a history of the country written by an Egyptian priest named [[Manetho]] in the third century{{nbsp}}BC. The original text was [[Lost literary work|lost]], and it survived only in
The [[Coptic language]], the last form of the Egyptian language, continued to be spoken by most Egyptians well after the [[Arab conquest of Egypt]] in AD{{nbsp}}642, but it gradually lost ground to [[Arabic language|Arabic]]. Coptic began to die out in the twelfth century, and thereafter it survived mainly as the [[liturgical language]] of the [[Coptic Church]].{{sfn|Hamilton|2006|pp=27–29, 195}}
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