LIST OF HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNS - Univerzita Karlova

1 sign -list EGYPTIAN GRAMMAR LIST OF HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNS IN the following pages an attempt is made to enumerate the commonest hieroglyphs found in Middle Egyptian, to determine the objects depicted by them, and to illustrate their uses. It would be easy enough to augment our list very considerably, though there might be difficulty in finding good forms of the rarer SIGNS which would then have to be included. But such an augmentation might well do more harm than good, by unduly dispersing the student's interest, instead of concentrating it upon the SIGNS most frequently met with. It must never be forgotten that in the eyes of the old Egyptians the HIEROGLYPHIC writing always remained a system of pictorial representation as well as a script.

2 Hence the capricious variety exhibited in the more elaborate inscriptions. To take but one example, the sign for' statue' Ii (A 22) is apt to change sex, head-gear, dress and accoutrements according as the context or the scribe's fancy may dictate. This is the principal reason why the printing of HIEROGLYPHIC texts is so unsatisfactory. No fount of type is sufficiently rich or sufficiently adaptable to do justice to the Egyptian originals. Indeed, there is only one wholly satisfactory method of publishing HIEROGLYPHIC texts, namely reproduction in facsimile. Two possibilities here present themselves, facsimile by hand and facsimile by photography.

3 The objection to facsimile by hand is, of course, the very laborious nature of the process. Facsimile by photography has the disadvantage that it will serve only for perfectly preserved texts. As a second-best alternative, the employment of autography is to be recommended, as in Sethe's Urkultdm der I8. Dynastic and in the Brussels Bibliotheca Aegyptiaca. The printing of HIEROGLYPHIC texts in type is really suitable only for grammatical or lexicographical works, especially where the hieroglyphs are to be combined with European characters. The discussion of this question is not without a practical purpose; it aims at impressing upon the student the great desirability of a good HIEROGLYPHIC handwritz"ng.

4 Far too lax standards in this respect have been tolerated in the past, and one of our principal aims in creating the new fount of type here employed for the first time was to give a fresh impetus to this side of the HIEROGLYPHIC scholar's trauung. The forms shown in the new fount are those normally used in the tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, though in some cases earlier forms had to be added in order to elucidate pictorial meanings which by that time had become either modified or forgotten. The beginner may safely use our types as his models, but he must realize that copying from the actual monuments gives a knowledge of HIEROGLYPHIC writing unobtainable in any other way.

5 The commonest hieroglyphs received their traditional, relatively stereotyped, forms in the very earliest Dynasties. Misinterpretations and confusions may, therefore, be expected at least as far back as the time of the Pyramid-builders. Some of the objects depicted may have been obsolete at a still more remote date, exx. the three-toothed harpoon of bone 1(T 20) and the form of mast represented by , (P 6). In other cases it is the method of depiction, not the object itself, which had become obsolete by the time that inscriptions began to be plentiful. 438 LIST OF HIEROGLYPHIC SIGNS sign -list Who would have guessed that 111-(D 61) represents human toes?

6 This interpretation is, however, supported by the form of that sign in the tomb of Metjen (Dyn. III), where the toe-nails are clearly marked, and is clinched by the fact that the word t11-~ Site means' toe '. The investigation of the pictorial meaning of the hieroglyphs is for this reason a very difficult task. But it is a task the interest of which is not confined to archaeology alone, since important lexicographical conclusions depend on the right understanding of the SIGNS . We have a clue to the central meaning of the obscure verb ~~\J""I1 mgd now that the sign \J""I1 (Aa 24) is known to depict the warp being stretched between two uprights.

7 From ~ (A 34) we learn at least something of the quality of the action expressed by the stem ~}~~ bwsi, 'pound', 'build', 'achieve '. The sign ~ (E 32) which determines .;;;~ Ifnd' to be angry' gives to that verb a colouring definitely distinct from the nearly synonymous ~'t:I gltd. Without the sign ~ (M 44) we should not realize the idea of ' sharpness' which enters into the Egyptian concep tion of preparedness' ~!'M spd. It is interesting, too, to note that in contexts where an object in contemporary use is intended, the determinative employed to designate it is sometimes brought up to date, while in other employments the corresponding sign retains an archaic appearance, exx.

8 '1 (T 7*) in ~LlX}'1 Ilfftw ' axe' as against -a-(T 7) in ~~X-a-mdft ' hew' ; ~ (T 8*) in j mt } ~ bg'sw ' dagger' as against ~ (T 8) in .~ tpy 'first'; .,.." (T 10) in :-=; Pgt as against '-=' (T 9), earlier -, in the verb ptl ' stretch '. However, the full value of the study of the hieroglyphs will not emerge until that studyis far more advanced than it is at present. \Ve are still quite ignorant of the origin of many SIGNS , such as ==fl (Aa 7), ~ (Aa 20), and t (Aa 27). The modern craving for scientific precision, so contrary to the habit of the Egyptians themselves, has often led in the past to falsification of the actual graphic facts.

9 Thus it has been the habit of scholars to write brP 'administrate' with i and sbm 'powerful' with f. This particular distinction rests, as it happens, on an erroneous assumption, namely that the SIGNS in question were originally different. But in other cases where there really was a difference, as between ~ 1mr and l rsw, between the rope ~ (1s) and the bag ~ (sIr), it is astonishing how often even the best scribes are guilty of confusion. Some of these confusions led in course of time to the substitution of one sign for another. Thus 0 (Aa 2) has absorbed quite a number of different SIGNS . Many such confusions arise through hieratic.

10 F or instance, hieratic >-+-< (Aa 8) stands not only for the HIEROGLYPHIC sign >-+-<, as in ~!m 'cease' and H~,~,g1(ilt ' council', but also for"""'" in ,,:--rd 'district' and for mm in ~ SPit' province '. Assimilations of the kind are apt to pass into HIEROGLYPHIC as well, where the reason for them is not obvious until their origin in hieratic is pointed out. (M. K. hieratic ~) constantly takes the place of ~(M. K. hieratic ~) in words from the st~m 1nr, like ~LJ 1nr 'magazine' for ~LJ, a word in which 'JJ itself is a substitution for an earlier sign ~. In copying the monuments we must resist the temptation to substitute more correct forms for those actually used.)