Lion-reclining (hieroglyph)
Encyclopedia
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 Lion-reclining hieroglyph, or the "Sphinx 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. E23 for the sphinx
Sphinx
A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...
, the "reclining lion".
The crouched lion hieroglyph 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 biliteral
Egyptian biliteral signs
Biliteral Egyptian hieroglyphs are symbols which represent a specific sequence of two consonants, also two vowels, or combinational of both, in the language...
for rw-(ru); also 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...
for 'lion'. It is also a phonogram
Phonogram (linguistics)
A phonogram is a grapheme which represents a phoneme or combination of phonemes, such as the letters of the Latin alphabet or the Japanese kana...
for rw, and later r.
The lion-reclining hieroglyph is also used in the Egyptian language for the alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
ic consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
letter l, or r, a uniliteral, depending on the timeperiod.
The Egyptian hieroglyph alphabetic letters
The following two tables show the Egyptian uniliteral signs. (24 letters, but multiple use hieroglyphs)| a |
i |
y |
' |
(w,u) |
B |
| P |
F |
M |
N |
R |
H1 |
| H2 |
Kh1 |
Kh2 |
S |
(Sh)=Š |
Q/K2 |
| K |
G |
T |
Ch—Tj |
D |
Dj |
| L/(R) (special) (Ptolemaic, etc) |
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| a | i (ee) |
y ii |
' ah, (aïn) |
w, (u) (oo) |
B |
| P | F | M | N | R | H1 |
| H2 | (Kh)1 | (Kh)2 | S | Sh (Sh) |
K emphatic |
| K | G | T | Tj Ch Tsh |
D | Dj |
| (additionally 4 for vert/horiz) |
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| M (horiz) M2-Plinth |
N (vert) (see: N (red crown)) |
S (vert) S (folded cloth) |
M (3rd-M -2nd-vert) M3-Baker's tool |
||
| (additionally 3 for equivalents) |
-- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
is— y2-Two strokes |
is— letter w, u (see w2-Coil) |
T (no. 2) T2-Pestle |
See also
- Gardiner's Sign List#P. Ships and Parts of Ships