Pr (
𓉐 Gardiner sign listed no.
O1) is the
hieroglyph for 'house', the floor-plan of a walled building with an open doorway.
While its original pronunciation is not known with certainty, modern Egyptology assigns it the value of ''per'', but purely on the basis of a
convention specific to the discipline. However, the Ancient Greek rendering of the title ''pr-`3'' as suggests the reconstruction of the historical (
Late Egyptian) pronunciation as *''par'', see
Pharaoh#Etymology.
Pr combined with an associated "personal
name
A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...
",
god
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
, or location becomes the ''"house of .... ."'' An example for
pharaoh Setnakhte is the city of: Pr-Atum, (city of
Pithom). Pr and
ankh-(life) is a "combination hieroglyph" and is the "word" for ''house of life''. The "house of life" is a
library
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
for
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'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...
books-(scrolls), as well as a possible
scriptorium.
The shape of ''pr'' in beginning dynasties had variations in the shape of a square, with the opening. See Garrett Reference for tomb of ''Official Ti''.
''Pr'' is one of hieroglyphs adopted into the
Proto-Sinaitic script
The Proto-Sinaitic script is a Middle Bronze Age writing system known from a small corpus of about Serabit el-Khadim proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, 30-40 inscriptions and fragments from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as Wadi el ...
, the earliest known
alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...
ic writing system. It was used to represent the phoneme /b/ as in ''bayt'', the
Canaanite word for "house", after the hieroglyph's original meaning.
The
Latin letter ''
B'' is a distant descendant of this letter.
"Pr-name" /associations
* pr-aa–
Pharaoh
* pa-pr-aa–
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'' or ''papyruses'') can a ...
* Pr-Ab–
Thoth
* Per-Amun–
Pelusium
* Pr-Aat–
Heliopolis
* Pr-Atum– House of
Atum:
Heliopolis
* Pr-Atum–
Setnakhte
* Pr-Banebdjedet–
Mendes
* Pr-Bast– House of
Bast:
Bubastis
* Pr-Bastet–
Zagazig
* Pr-Djet– a type of early
Egyptian tomb
* Pr-Hai–
Malqata
* Pr-Hay–
Amenhotep III
* Pr-Hay–
Great Temple of the Aten
*
Pr-Hathor–
Aphroditopolis
* Pr-Hedj–
Treasury (House of Silver)
* Pr-Medjat–
Library
A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...
* Pr-Nebu–
Treasury (House of Gold)
* Pr-Nebyt–
Ramesses V
* Pr-Nemty–
Hieracon
* Pr-Ramesses–
Avaris,
History of ancient Egypt
*
Pr-Sekhemkheperre–
Osorkon I
*
Pr-Sopdu–
Sopdu
* Pr-t–
Season of the Emergence
*
Pr-Temu Tjeku–
Necho II
* Pr-Wadjet–
Buto,
Wadjet
Wadjet (; "Green One"), known to the Greek world as Uto (; ) or Buto (; ) among other renderings including Wedjat, Uadjet, and Udjo, was originally the ancient Egyptian Tutelary deity, local goddess of the city of Dep or Buto in Lower Egypt, ...
* Pr-Yinepu–
Anubis
See also
*
List of Egyptian hieroglyphs
*
Pr-Bast
*
Pr-Medjed
*
Pr-Nemty
*
Pr-Wadjet
*
Pi-Ramesses
*
Pi-Sekhemkheperre
*
Per-Sopdu
*
Egyptian biliteral signs
*
Notes
* The Per Ankh was also known as "The House of Life."It was made by Thoth, the Egyptian god.
References
*Garrett, Kenneth. ''Treasures of Egypt, National Geographic Collector's Ed. No. 5.'' Kenneth Garrett,
Egyptian Museum
The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, commonly known as the Egyptian Museum (, Egyptian Arabic: ) (also called the Cairo Museum), located in Cairo, Egypt, houses the largest collection of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian antiquities in the world. It hou ...
, Cairo. 2003.
External links
Per-Ankh
Egyptian hieroglyphs: buildings and parts-of-buildings-etc
{{AncientEgypt-stub