[thaumasiotes]

> pictograms like many Chinese characters

A handful of Chinese characters are pictograms. As far as I recall, it is by far the smallest class of characters, and all of them, including the ones that started as pictograms, are treated by modern readers as phonetic indicators.

Compare e.g. 象 to https://img.zdic.net/zy/jinwen/33_E87E.svg .

They are the same character. Does that help you if you're looking at 象?