Reading Egyptian Art

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Reading Egyptian Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Egyptian Painting and Sculpture is a 1992 primer on Egyptian hieroglyphs written by English archaeologist Richard H. Wilkinson.The book was written from the viewpoint of seeing hieroglyphs in the context of their use in iconography of sculpture, monuments, reliefs, tomb reliefs, literature, specifically the corpus of The Book of the Dead versions for various deceased Egyptians, and other areas.

Contents

The book is arranged sequentially with the 26 categories of Gardiner's Sign List. Each entry is a detailed write-up, and a facing page of one to six graphic or photo examples, elucidating the hieroglyphs usage.

Example categories

Hippopotamus hieroglyph

The hippopotamus, Gardiner E25,
Reading Egyptian Art
shows a "Faience hippopotamus, Meir, 12th Dynasty." [1] The photo is a small statuette, the hippo skin covered with large lined lotus buds, and lotus blossoms.

Follower Sign

The less common Follower Sign, Gardiner T18,
Reading Egyptian Art
uses three examples, the first being from the Tomb of Sennedjem, Thebes, 19th Dynasty, and shows the barque of Ra and the main iconography of the Follower Sign, Ra as seated God, and the Steering Oar (hieroglyph) at rear. [2]

"Clenched Hand" from the palette corpus

The not-so-common Clenched Hand, Gardiner D49, (khefa),
Reading Egyptian Art
shows 4 graphics, but the largest is one side of the Bull Palette, from the Predynastic Period cosmetic palette corpus, with its iconography of warriors on a field, the 'community large rope', and 5 standards-for-gods, (iat standard (hieroglyph)). [3]

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Scorpion II Protodynastic Egyptian king

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Deshret Red crown of Lower Egypt

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Gardiner's Sign List is a list of common Egyptian hieroglyphs compiled by Sir Alan Gardiner. It is considered a standard reference in the study of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

This is a glossary of ancient Egypt artifacts.

Man-prisoner (hieroglyph)

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The ancient Egyptian Hand hieroglyph is an alphabetic hieroglyph with the meaning of "d"; it is also used in the word for 'hand', and actions that are performed, i.e. by the 'way of one's hands', or actions.

The Throw stick hieroglyph of ancient Egypt is an old hieroglyph that dates from the Predynastic Period; it is from the assemblage of hieroglyphs used on the ornamental, or ceremonial cosmetic palettes. It is used on the palettes both as a throwing-stick weapon in the animal hunt being portrayed-(the Hunters Palette), as well as on certain palettes, as a determinative referring to a "foreigner", or "foreign territory".

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Fish cosmetic palette Ancient Egyptian artifacts

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The Jubilee Festival for the Pharaoh, the Heb Sed is represented in hieroglyphs by a Jubilee Pavilion Hieroglyph. It is Gardiner Sign Listed as no. O23. However it often appears with other pavilion, or festival hieroglyphs: the Hall, no. O22,

Townsite-city-region (hieroglyph)

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Sail (hieroglyph)

The ancient Egyptian Sail hieroglyph is Gardiner sign listed no. P5 for the sail of a ship. The hieroglyph shows a hoisted sail, curved because of wind filling it. It is used in Egyptian hieroglyphs as a determinative for words related to wind, air, breath, sailors,, floods-(of the Nile), etc. Also an ideogram in 'puff', 'wind', Egyptian (tsh)3w-(ṯau).

Set animal Totemic animal of the god Set

In ancient Egyptian art, the Set animal, or sha, is the totemic animal of the god Set. Because Set was identified with the Greek Typhon, the animal is also commonly known as the Typhonian animal or Typhonic beast.

Scribe equipment (hieroglyph)

The ancient Egyptian Scribe equipment hieroglyph 𓏞, or its reversed form 𓏟, portrays the equipment of the scribe. Numerous scribes used the hieroglyph in stating their name, either on papyrus documents, but especially on statuary or tomb reliefs.

Crocodile (pharaoh) Provisional name of an Egyptian predynastic ruler

Crocodile is the provisional name of a predynastic ruler, who might have ruled during the late Naqada III epoch. The few alleged ink inscriptions showing his name are drawn very sloppily, and the reading and thus whole existence of king "Crocodile" are highly disputed. His tomb is unknown.

References

  1. Reading Egyptian Art, Hippopotamus, deb, E25, p. 70-71
  2. Reading Egyptian Art, Follower Sign, shemset, T18 p. 186-187
  3. Reading Egyptian Art, Clenched Hand, khefa D49, p. 54-55