Sky (hieroglyph)

Last updated February 22, 2019

Sky
(heaven)
in hieroglyphs

The ancient Egyptian Sky hieroglyph, (also translated as heaven in some texts, or iconography), is Gardiner sign listed no. N1, within the Gardiner signs for sky, earth, and water.

Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in the place that is now the country Egypt. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes. The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.

The Egyptian language was spoken in ancient Egypt and was a branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Its attestation stretches over an extraordinarily long time, from the Old Egyptian stage. Its earliest known complete written sentence has been dated to about 2690 BC, which makes it one of the oldest recorded languages known, along with Sumerian.

The Biliteral Egyptian hieroglyphs are hieroglyphs which represent a specific sequence of two consonants. The listed hieroglyphs focus on the consonant combinations rather than the meanings behind the hieroglyphs.

Ideogram graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept, independent of any particular language, and specific words or phrases. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.

The Sky hieroglyph is often written with the complement of its component values of "p", and "t",

,

in a hieroglyph composition block,

meaning "pt", or commonly 'pet'.

Pt, with Gods and the Pharaoh

The Sky hieroglyph can be found in iconography with the gods, especially Ra as referencing the Lord of P(e)t, (Lord of Heaven), and the God's ownership of Pet. The Pharaoh is often equally named as the Lord of Pet.

Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct from artistic style. The word iconography comes from the Greek εἰκών ("image") and γράφειν.

Ra or Re is the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon sun. Ra was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld.

Some ancient Egyptian names using the sky hieroglyph are Petosiris and the god Petbe.

Petosiris, called Ankhefenkhons, was the high priest of Thoth at Hermopolis and held various priestly degrees in the service of Sakhmet, Khnum, Amen-Re and Hathor.

In Egyptian mythology, Petbe was the god of revenge, worshiped in the area around Akhmin, in central Egypt. His name translates as Sky-Ba, roughly meaning Soul of the Sky, or Mood of the sky. However, Petbe may be a Chaldean deity introduced by immigrant workers from the Levant, with his name being a corruption of the hybrid phrase Pet-(Ba'al), meaning Lord of the sky. Early Christians compared Petbe to the Greek god Cronus.

Ligatured variants of Sky

The simple 'vault' of the sky hieroglyph has variants that are ligatured with it. Three of these are given separate entries in Gardiner's sign list:^[2]

In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined as a single glyph. An example is the character æ as used in English, in which the letters a and e are joined. The common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t were combined.

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.

1–The Sky with 4 Props–Sky combined with 4 Props,

Used for word i3dt, "dew"; determinative for šnyt-(-(sh)nyt), "rain".

2–The Sky with Was-staff–Sky with Staff,

Used for words meaning obscurity: grh and wh, for "night", and kkw, for "dark".

3–The Sky with Oar-(for staff)–Replacement:

Same as Sky with Was-staff

The hieroglyphs used in the three ligatures are the Prop, Gardiner O30, Was-staff, S40, and Oar, P8:

,

.

Why the sky hieroglyph is not a biliteral

Though the sky hieroglyph is used as pt, in the Coptic alphabet, for the Coptic language, (the follow-on to the Egyptian hieroglyphs), the spelling of the "sky" is "pe" in Coptic. Consequently, Budge's 2-volume dictionary lists the sky hieroglyph under "pe-t"^[3]

The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Egyptian Demotic and is the first alphabetic script used for the Egyptian language. There are several Coptic alphabets, as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various dialects and subdialects of the Coptic language.

Coptic language Latest stage of the Egyptian language

Coptic, or Coptic Egyptian, is the latest stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century as an official language. Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet, an adaptation of the Greek alphabet with the addition of six or seven signs from Demotic to represent Egyptian sounds the Greek language did not have, in the 1st century AD.

In the short P word section in the Egyptian dictionaries, the end of the P's has the pd, and pdj. In the languages the d's and t's are listed together; they are the unaspirated and the aspirated. (See d, and dj, the hieroglyphs for "hand" and "cobra".) The pd is represented by 'feet', and parts of them, and 'running', and the hieroglyph for 'extend', Gardiner no. T9-(similar to a bow),

(Many of the entries also refer to items about the bow, i.e. "stringing a bow", etc.) The pdj then refers to bowmen, etc., and especially the Nine bows. The archers of the 1350 BC Amarna letters, the archers (Egyptian pitati) get their name of 'pitati' from these related pd words.

Preceded by

Stool-or-mat (hieroglyph)
unileral-P
(start of P's)

sky-("heaven")
"pt"

Succeeded by

Bird in flight
p3-(pa)

Relief
Pyramidion
Temple of Hatshepsut
Hieroglyph-(using Sky hieroglyph)

Related Research Articles

The ancient Egyptian hill-country hieroglyph is a member of the sky, earth, and water hieroglyphs. A form of the hieroglyph in color, has a green line-(banding) at the base of the hieroglyph. The hieroglyph refers to the hills, and mountains, on both sides of the Nile River, and thus the green references the verdant black farming land adjacent to the river proper.

The Egyptian hieroglyph representing gold, phonetic value nb, is important due to its use in the Horus-of-Gold name, one of the Fivefold Titulary names of the Egyptian pharaoh.

The ancient Egyptian Branch hieroglyph, also called a Stick, is a member of the trees and plants hieroglyphs.

The ancient Egyptian child hieroglyph is part of the Egyptian Gardiner's Sign List hieroglyphs for the beginning core subgroup of Man and his Occupations. It relates to the child, and childhood, and has a version for the Pharaoh, as a child.

The Ancient Egyptian Townsite-city-region (hieroglyph) is Gardiner sign listed no. O49 for the intersection of a town's streets. In some Egyptian hieroglyphs books it is called a City Plan.

The Ancient Egyptian Brazier hieroglyph is Gardiner sign listed no. Q7 for the cooking brazier. It is shown from the Old Kingdom in the style of a vertical burning flame upon four feet, but the hieroglyph has the flame hiding the fourth foot. Another Gardiner unlisted form has the four feet, with no flame, and in a plan view.

The use of the spine with fluid hieroglyph is for words showing "length", as opposed to 'breadth',. Some example words for 'length' are: to be long, length, to extend, extended; and for to expand, to dilate, words like: joy, gladness, pleasure, delight.

The Ancient Egyptian Swallow hieroglyph is Gardiner sign listed no. G36 for swallow birds. The Sparrow hieroglyph appears similar in size and shape, but it is used to represent small, or bad items.

The grape arbor hieroglyph is used in Egyptian hieroglyphs as a determinative, or ideogram for words related to the "vineyard", i3rrt, or for 'wine', irp; it is also used for describing 'fruit' or 'orchards'.

The ancient Egyptian Face hieroglyph, Gardiner sign listed no. D2 is a portrayal of the human face, frontal view.

The ancient Egyptian Pick hieroglyph, Gardiner sign listed nos. U17, U18 is a portrayal of a 'pick upon the side view of a block'; it is in the Gardiner subset for agriculture, crafts, and professions.

The ancient Egyptian Night hieroglyph, Gardiner sign listed nos. N3 is a portrayal of the sky with the 'was' scepter hanging from it; it is in the Gardiner subset for "sky, earth, and water".

The ancient Egyptian Two Whips with Shen ring hieroglyph, Gardiner sign listed no. S23 is a portrayal of the Shen ring with two Egyptian flails-(Crook and flail); it is a member of the Gardiner subset for "crowns, dress, staves, etc".

In the Egyptian language, the single stair hieroglyph is used as a determinative.

The ancient Egyptian Water-jugs-in-stand hieroglyph, is Gardiner sign listed no. W17, W18, within the Gardiner signs for vessels of stone and earthenware.

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.

The Egyptian hieroglyph representing a honey bee. It is used as an ideogram for "bee" (bjt), but most frequently as part of the title of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, rendered nswt-bjtj.

The irrigated land hieroglyph represents "district, nome". It is a determinative in the name of provinces and regions in the noun ḥsp, for "garden", "vegetable garden", and "orchard".

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, the hieroglyph is used for the phonetic value of sma, with meanings of to join together, to unite with.

The Hippopotamus (hieroglyph) is Gardiner sign listed no. E25, in the category of mammals. It is used in Egyptian hieroglyphs as a determinative in words designating the animal, in Egyptian as db, and kh3b.

References

↑ Betrò, 1995. Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt, section: Sky, p. 150.
↑ Betrò, 1995. Sky, p. 150.
↑ Budge, 1978, (1920). An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, entry pe-t, p. 229A.

Betrò, 1995. Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt , Maria Carmela Betrò, c. 1995, 1996-(English), Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, London, Paris (hardcover, ISBN 0-7892-0232-8)
Budge. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1978, (c 1920), Dover edition, 1978. (In two volumes) (softcover, ISBN 0-486-23615-3)

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[1] Betrò, 1995. Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt, section: Sky, p. 150.

[2] Betrò, 1995. Sky, p. 150.

[3] Budge, 1978, (1920). An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, entry pe-t, p. 229A.