Black (hieroglyphic 'km') - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Egyptian hieroglyph for "black" in Gardiner's sign list

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....

is numbered I6. Its phonetic value is . The Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache-(Dictionary of the Egyptian Language) lists no less than 24 different terms of km indicating 'black' such as black stone, metal, wood, hair, eyes, animals and people.

The most common explanation for the hieroglyph is under the Gardiner's Sign List

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....

, section I for "amphibious animals, reptiles, etc" is a crocodile skin with spines. Rossini and Schumann-Antelme propose that the crocodile skin hieroglyph actually shows claws coming out of the hide.

Besides 'black', the alternate use of the hieroglyph is for items terminating, coming-to-an-end, items of completion, hence a reference to charcoal, burning to its ending.

km.t

Ancient Egypt is commonly referred to as 'km.t' , with the theorized reference to the black Nile Delta earth. The determinative O49 is used to designate the term for 'country, inhabited/cultivated land', called the niw.t (a political designate). It is a circle with a cross which represents a street, 'town intersection'.

In the Demotic (Egyptian)

Demotic (Egyptian)

Demotic refers to either the ancient Egyptian script derived from northern forms of hieratic used in the Delta, or the stage of the Egyptian language following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic. The term was first used by the Greek historian Herodotus to distinguish it from hieratic and...

text of the Rosetta Stone, the demotic for Egypt is 'Kmi' . There are three uses of the actual Kmi, but 7 others referenced as Kmi refer to iAt in the hieroglyphs. Other euphemistic references to Egypt in the Rosetta Stone include "Ta-Mer-t", which has the meaning of the 'full/fruitful/cultivated land', hr-tAwy, the 'lands of Horus', and tAwy, the "Two Lands."

Kmi—spelling-"Egypt" —(22 places, sychronized, Demotic–Hieroglyphs)

demotic—hieroglyphs
1. –Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
2. –Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
3. –Kmi—rsy.t + mHt
  (i.e. South and North)(lands)
4. –Kmi—"Hr
  Horus
  Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
  
  tAwy"
5. –Kmi—kmt-(restored)
6. –Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
7. –Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
8. –Kmi—iAt
9. –Kmi—kmt
10. –Kmi—"Hr
  Horus
  Horus is one of the oldest and most significant deities in the Ancient Egyptian religion, who was worshipped from at least the late Predynastic period through to Greco-Roman times. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists...
  
  tAwy"
11. –Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
12. –Kmi—iAt
13. –Kmi—iAt

demotic—hieroglyphs
14.–Kmi—XXXXXX-(omitted from text)
15.–Kmi—rsy.t + mHt
(i.e. South and North)(lands)
16.–Bki—iAt
17.–Kmi—kmt
18.–Kmi—iAt
19.–Kmi—tAwy
20.–Kmi—iAt

21.–Kmi—iAt
22.–Kmi—Ta-Mer-t
--
--
--

Egyptian word examples, conclusion, completion, kmt, km iri

Coming to a conclusion, or completion is one use of the km hieroglyph in the words kmt and km iri ('to make an end'). The discussion of the biliteral states: The conclusion of a document, written in black ink, ending the work, has the same semantic connotation. (as km for 'concluding') The Rossini, Schumann-Antelme write-up states that initially the word comes from "shield", ikm, and thus the original association with the crocodile.

Alternative glyph, X5 equivalent, items burning black to an ending

Since the origin of the 'black' hieroglyph, and relationships to other forms showing vertical flame-like rises on the end of a flat-triangular shape, there has been discussion of this hieroglyph. As stated above, Schumann-Antelme and Rossini explain the crocodile skin, but with claws. In the 'new age' system of hieroglyph books by late 20th century, early 21st century authors, the text by Collier-Manley describes the same "crocodile skin", Gardiner I6, as burning charcoal with flames. Consequently, there is a common debate ongoing.

Skin, I6 entry in 1920 Budge "dictionary"

The last three of four entries ending the 27 entries deal with black stones, or powders and black plants, or seeds; (all small multiple, plural, grains-of, items). They are preceded by entries 21 and 22, a "buckler", or "shield", and "black wood". Entry 26 is an image, or statue, using the vertical mummy hieroglyph gardiner A53, ("in the form of", "the custom of"). These last six entries are unreferenced.

The first 4 of 5 entries, kam, kam-t, or kamkam all deal with items coming to an end. (Entry four is untranslated and is from Pap. 3024, Lepsius, Denkmaler-(papyrus).) The references for the others in the first five are: Peasant, Die Klagen des Bauern, 1908., Thes.-(Thesaurus Inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum, Brugsch);. A. Z.-(twice); Shipwreck.
Tale of the shipwrecked sailor
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is a Middle Kingdom story of an Ancient Egyptian voyage to "the King's mines" .-Historical information:...

, 118-(Tale of the shipwrecked sailor); Amen.-(author: Amen-em-apt); and Thes. (again).

Entries 6 to 20 deal with "black" or gods, or named items. Only 8 of these items reference black, but start by also referring to Coptic

Coptic language

Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...

. Entries 6, 7, and 8 refer to coptic "KAME", for 6 and 8; entry 7 to coptic "KMOM", "KMEM". For entry 7, to be black, Budge also references Revue-(Rev.); for entry 8, black items, Budge also references T.-(King Teta); and N.-(Pepi II-(King Nefer-ka-Ra). The other hieroglyph word entries of entry 9 to 20, have about fifteen further references, all starting with the km hieroglyph.

On the other hand, the works of Budge have not held up well in terms of recent hieroglyph scholarship since the 1930s. Even during Budge's own lifetime, many Egyptological scholars disputed Budge's interpretation of glyphs and texts . Today, no modern Egyptological scholar relies upon the works of E. A. W. Budge as evidence of proper glyph rendering, by either his translation or transliteration (his transliteration system was unique to Budge alone as most Egyptologists then (and today) relied upon the transcription and transliteration system developed by the Berlin School which issued the master compendium of Egyptian hieroglyphic language in 1926, Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache (7 Vols.) , and which is detailed in the publication by A. H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs (1957)). As such, references to Budge's dictionary and within Budge's dictionary are considered highly suspect by most Egyptologists today, as they do not actually relate back to the terms as he defined them.

Shield

"Shield", ikm and another word with an approximate km cognate, 'khm starting with the vowel ( ' ), 'khm, meaning to put to an end are the possible words related to the origins of the crocodile skin, and the 'verb of action', of items coming to an end. The second word 'khm has nine entries in the Budge dictionary, shield, ikam, has two entries.

km.t

Egyptian word examples, conclusion, completion, kmt, km iri

Alternative glyph, X5 equivalent, items burning black to an ending

Skin, I6 entry in 1920 Budge "dictionary"

Shield

See also