The
ancient Egyptian Scribe equipment hieroglyph 𓏞 (
Gardiner no. Y3), or its reversed form 𓏟 (
Gardiner no. Y4), portrays the equipment of the
scribe. Numerous scribes used the hieroglyph in stating their name, either on
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
documents, but especially on
statuary or tomb
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
s.
The hieroglyph depicts the 3 major components of a scribe's equipment:
# tube case – for holding writing-reeds
# leather bag – for holding colored inks (the canonical colors, black and red, mixed with water and gum)
# wood ''scribal palette'' – with mixing pools; (not always made from wood)
Language usage
The scribe equipment hieroglyph is often used as a
determinative
A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may ...
for items relating to writing or the scribe. Combined with the determinative for person 𓀀 (
Gardiner no. A1), the hieroglyph is read as ''zẖꜣw'', probably pronounced
açʀaw'' or
içɫu'' in
Old Egyptian
The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...
, and
açʔaw'' or
açʔufollowing the changes in pronunciation of ''z'' in
Middle Egyptian
The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the deciphe ...
and of ꜣ in Late Egyptian. By the
Coptic stage of the language, this had lost its glottal stop and ending, reducing to ⲥⲁϧ
ax'' (pl. ⲥϧⲟⲩⲓ
xwi'').
Often the transliteration "sesh" appears, derived from the mistaken reading ''sš'' propagated in the dictionary and books of
E. A. W. Budge. This reading is found as a phonetic complement using the signs for ''z'' and ''š'', leading to the misunderstanding. However, Old Kingdom Egyptian lacked a distinct sign for the ''ẖ'' sound and the Coptic descendant shows that the original second consonant was indeed the palatalized fricative ''ẖ'' not the (alveolo-)palatal sibilant ''š'', (''š'' being the
pool-lake-basin (hieroglyph) in the
Egyptian language
The Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian ( ) is a dead Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipher ...
).
When used as the verb ''zẖꜣ'', the hieroglyph has a variety of related meanings: to write, to draw, to make a design, to do into writing. As the noun ''zẖꜣ'', it means: writing, inscription, written roll of papyrus, book, copy of a document, & handwriting. In plural usage: writings, letters, books, documents, archives, decrees, handwriting, the columns of a book, papers, title-deeds, registers, and literature.[Budge, pp. 1067-1255.]
Gallery
File:Meryre and his wife Iniuia.jpg, Meryre, a Scribe, and his wife
(hieroglyph on his pants, w/ his name)
File:Egypte louvre 112 statue.jpg, Block statue
The block statue is a type of memorial statue that first emerged in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The block statue grew in popularity in the New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period, and by the Late Period, this type of statue was the most ...
of a scribe
(with his name)
File:Hesy-Ra CG1428 det1.jpg, Wood panel of scribe Hesy-Ra
(1 of 7 panels, Old Kingdom
In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...
)
GD-EG-Louxor-126.JPG, Seated scribe with part of scribe equipment on shoulders
(2-basin mixing palette over left shoulder)
Equipment, as an artifact
File:Scribe stuff.jpg, Artefact
File:Writing Palette and Brushes of Princess Meketaten MET 26.7.1295 EGDP016117.jpg, Writing palette and brushes of Princess Meketaten. Metropolitan Museum of Art
See also
*
Gardiner's Sign List#Y. Writings, Games, and Music
*
List of Egyptian hieroglyphs
The total number of distinct Egyptian hieroglyphs increased over time from several hundred in the Middle Kingdom to several thousand during the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
In 1928/1929 Alan Gardiner published an overview of hieroglyphs, Gardiner's sign ...
References
*Betrò, 1995. ''
Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt,'' Betrò, Maria Carmela, c. 1995, 1996-(English), Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, London, Paris (hardcover, )
*Budge. ''An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary,''
E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1978, (c 1920), Dover edition, 1978. (In two volumes, 1314 pp, and cliv-(154) pp.) (softcover, )
* Loprieno, Antonio, ''Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction'', Cambridge University Press, 1995. (hbk) {{ISBN, 0-521-44849-2 (pbk)
Egyptian hieroglyphs: writings-games-music