What is "picture writing"

Picture \Pic"ture\, n. [L. pictura, fr. pingere, pictum, to paint: cf. F. peinture. See Paint.]

1. The art of painting; representation by painting. [Obs.]

   Any well-expressed image . . . either in picture or sculpture.
   --Sir H. Wotton.

2. A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, produced by means of painting, drawing, engraving, photography, etc.; a representation in colors. By extension, a figure; a model.

   Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects.
   --Bacon.

   The young king's picture . . . in virgin wax.
   --Howell.

3. An image or resemblance; a representation, either to the eye or to the mind; that which, by its likeness, brings vividly to mind some other thing; as, a child is the picture of his father; the man is the picture of grief. My eyes make pictures when they are shut. --Coleridge. Note: Picture is often used adjectively, or in forming self-explaining compounds; as, picture book or picture-book, picture frame or picture-frame, picture seller or picture-seller, etc. Animated picture, a moving picture. Picture gallery, a gallery, or large apartment, devoted to the exhibition of pictures. Picture red, a rod of metal tube fixed to the walls of a room, from which pictures are hung. Picture writing.

   1. The art of recording events, or of expressing messages, by means of pictures representing the actions or circumstances in question.
      --Tylor.

   2. The record or message so represented; as, the picture writing of the American Indians.

      Syn: Picture, Painting.

      Usage: Every kind of representation by drawing or painting is a picture, whether made with oil colors, water colors, pencil, crayons, or India ink; strictly, a painting is a picture made by means of colored paints, usually applied moist with a brush.

n. a writing system using pictographs