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 Sail 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. P5 for the sail of a ship. The hieroglyph shows a hoisted sail, curved because of wind filling it. It is used in Egyptian hieroglyphs

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...

 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...

 for words related to wind, air, breath, sailors, (as "nefu"), floods-(of the Nile), etc. 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...

 in 'puff', 'wind', Egyptian (tsh)3w-(ṯau).

Breath, in the Book of the Dead

Because of the use of the word 'winds', the 'breath' concept became an equally important usage of the sail hieroglyph. The Nile

Nile

The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...

 current carried ships downstream-(north), but sometimes prevailing, or advatageous winds allowed upstream travel on the Nile.

A replacement of the sekhem scepter

Sekhem scepter

For the alternative therapy sometimes referred to as Sekhem, see Seichim.The Sekhem-scepter is a type of ritual scepter in ancient Egypt. It is a symbol of authority and is often incorporated in names and words associated with power and control...

 held in the hand in vignettes from the Books of the Dead

Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

 refers to obtaining life-giving 'breath' in the afterlife. An example is Nakht

Nakht

The Ancient Egyptian official Nakht was an 'astronomer' , scribe, and priest during the reign of Thutmose IV, during the Eighteenth Dynasty. He is buried in the Theban Necropolis, in tomb TT52....

, (Papyrus of Nakht, 18th-19th Dynasty), holding a large mast-on-a-staff, referring to Spell 38A, for living by air in the realm of the dead. Other stick figured caricature examples show the mast and an ankh

Ankh

The ankh , also known as key of life, the key of the Nile or crux ansata, was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants ʻ-n-ḫ...

 in each hand, both signifying a "breath (of) life"

Breath of life

- Medicine and philosophy :* Prana, or life force, in Vedantic philosophy* Pneuma , in Stoic philosophy* Pneuma * A concept in biodynamic osteopathy and craniosacral therapy- Film :...

.

Other spells in the Book of the Dead use the concept of 'breath' in even more storied forms and involving various gods.