Crossroads (hieroglyph)
Encyclopedia
The Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian Crossroads hieroglyph is Gardiner
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....

 sign listed no. O49 for the intersection
Intersection (road)
An intersection is a road junction where two or more roads either meet or cross at grade . An intersection may be 3-way - a T junction or fork, 4-way - a crossroads, or 5-way or more...

 of a town's streets. In some Egyptian hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

s books it is called a City Plan.

It is used in Egyptian hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

s as a determinative
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 derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...

 in the names of town or city placenames. Also, as an ideogram
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...

 in the Egyptian word "city", niwt.

Origin and history

Betrò's modern Egyptian book, Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt uses the "crossroads", "intersection" hieroglyph with the name of City Plan. The oldest use of placenames is from the original cosmetic palette
Cosmetic palette
The cosmetic palettes of middle to late predynastic Egypt are archaeological artifacts, originally used to grind and apply ingredients for facial or body cosmetics. The decorative palettes of the late 4th millennium BCE appear to have lost this function and became commemorative, ornamental, and...

s of the early years of Ancient Egypt. The Narmer Palette
Narmer Palette
The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great ierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of...

 has a bull with a broken-open fortress (hieroglyph) enclosure. The Bull Palette
Bull Palette
The Bull Palette is an ancient Egyptian palette in the corpus of iconographic cosmetic palettes that focus on topics from the Late Predynastic Period, ca late 4th millennium BC....

 contains two cities identified with internal iconographic
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

 hieroglyphs.

Betrò uses the Libyan Palette
Libyan Palette
The Libyan Palette is the surviving lower portion of a stone cosmetic palette bearing carved decoration and writing. It dates from the Naqada III or Protodynastic Period of Egypt...

 as her extensive explanation of the City Plan. The Libyan Palette contains seven cities, fortress-protected; the seven cities are identified inside an approximate–circular–enclosure with iconography, with some signs to become hieroglyphs, and similarly identified externally with the similar hieroglyphic iconography, also to be used as hieroglyphs. (see list: Libyan Palette
Libyan Palette
The Libyan Palette is the surviving lower portion of a stone cosmetic palette bearing carved decoration and writing. It dates from the Naqada III or Protodynastic Period of Egypt...

)

Fortress hieroglyph and the Nine Bows

The fortress (hieroglyph) iconography was still being used in Ramesses II
Ramesses II
Ramesses II , referred to as Ramesses the Great, was the third Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire...

's time to identify placenames of defeated locations, referring to the Nine bows
Nine bows
The nine bows is a term used in Ancient Egypt to represent the traditional enemies of Egypt. The peoples covered by this term changed over time, as enemies changed, and there is no true list of the nine bows...

. The fortress hieroglyph is shown in three non-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....

ed forms-(all vertical); the category is Buildings and Parts of Buildings.

See also

  • Gardiner's Sign List#O. Buildings, Parts of Buildings, etc.
  • Intersection (road)
    Intersection (road)
    An intersection is a road junction where two or more roads either meet or cross at grade . An intersection may be 3-way - a T junction or fork, 4-way - a crossroads, or 5-way or more...

  • Libyan Palette
    Libyan Palette
    The Libyan Palette is the surviving lower portion of a stone cosmetic palette bearing carved decoration and writing. It dates from the Naqada III or Protodynastic Period of Egypt...

  • Bull Palette
    Bull Palette
    The Bull Palette is an ancient Egyptian palette in the corpus of iconographic cosmetic palettes that focus on topics from the Late Predynastic Period, ca late 4th millennium BC....

  • Narmer Palette
    Narmer Palette
    The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great ierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, containing some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It is thought by some to depict the unification of...

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