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.'' The ''Sky'' hieroglyph is used like an

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 ...

biliteral-(but is not listed there) and an

ideogram An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek "idea" and "to write") 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 famili ...

in ''pt'', "sky"; it is 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 ...

in other synonyms of ''sky''. For the language value ''hrt'', it has the phonetic value ''hry''.

The Sky hieroglyph is often written with the complement of its component values of " p", and "t", Q3, X1 in a hieroglyph composition block, N1:Q3*X1 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.'' Some ancient Egyptian names using the ''sky'' hieroglyph are Petosiris and the god Petbe.

Ligatured variants of ''Sky''

The simple 'vault' of the sky hieroglyph has variants that are

ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

d with it. Three of these are given separate entries in

Gardiner's sign list 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. Gardiner lists only the common forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but h ...

1–The ''Sky with 4 Props''–Sky combined with 4 Props, N4 Used for word ''i3dt'', "dew";

for ''šnyt''-(-''(sh)nyt''), "rain".

2–The ''Sky with

Was Was or WAS may refer to: * ''Was'', a past-tense form of the English copular verb ''to be'' People * David Was (born c. 1952), the stage name of multi-instrumentalist and songwriter David Weiss * Don Was (born 1952), the stage name of bass guita ...

-staff''–Sky with Staff, N2 Used for words meaning obscurity: ''grh'' and ''wh'', for "night", and ''kkw'', for "dark".

3–The ''Sky with Oar''-(for staff)–Replacement: N3 Same as ''Sky with Was-staff''

The hieroglyphs used in the three ligatures are the Prop, Gardiner O30,

-staff, S40, and Oar, P8: O30, S40, 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"''Budge, 1978, (1920). ''An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary,'' entry ''pe-t'', p. 229A.

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), T9 (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 Nine Bows is a visual representation in Ancient Egyptian art of foreigners or others. Besides the nine bows, there were no other generic representations of foreigners. Due to its ability to stand in for any nine enemies to Ancient Egypt, the ...

. The archers of the 1350 BC Amarna letters, the

archers (Egyptian pitati) Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In mo ...

get their name of 'pitati' from these related ''pd'' words.

File:Edfu31.JPG, Relief File:Навершие_гробницы_жреца_Рер_VII_в_до_н.э._Эрмитаж,_Санкт-Петербург,_Россия.jpg,

Pyramidion A pyramidion (plural: pyramidia) is the uppermost piece or capstone of an Egyptian pyramid or obelisk. Speakers of the Ancient Egyptian language referred to pyramidia as ''benbenet'' and associated the pyramid as a whole with the sacred ...

File:S F-E-CAMERON Hatshepsut Hawk.JPG,

Temple of Hatshepsut The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''Ḏsr-ḏsrw'' meaning "Holy of Holies") is a mortuary temple built during the reign of Pharaoh Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Located opposite the city of Luxor, ...

File:HierN.png, Hieroglyph-(using Sky hieroglyph)

References

*Betrò, 1995. '' Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt'', Maria Carmela Betrò, 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) (softcover, {{ISBN, 0-486-23615-3) Egyptian hieroglyphs: sky-earth-water

Pt, with Gods and the Pharaoh

Ligatured variants of ''Sky''

Why the sky hieroglyph is not a biliteral

See also

References