The ancient Egyptian Sky hieroglyph, (also translated as ''heaven'' in some texts, or iconography), is

Gardiner Gardiner may refer to: Places Settlements ;Canada * Gardiner, Ontario ;United States * Gardiner, Maine * Gardiner, Montana * Gardiner (town), New York ** Gardiner (CDP), New York * Gardiner, Oregon * Gardiner, Washington * West Gardiner, Maine ...

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 deciphe ...

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 familiarit ...

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 ma ...

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 Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

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 Petosiris ( grc, Πετόσιρις), 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. Petosiris was the son of Sishu and Nefer- renpet. ...

and the god

Petbe 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 introd ...

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 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 ...

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 gui ...

-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 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 la ...

, for the

Coptic language Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Copti ...

, (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 A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered appendage located at the end of the forearm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs. A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs on each " ...

" 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) 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 File:S F-E-CAMERON Hatshepsut Hawk.JPG, Temple of Hatshepsut 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