Egyptian
Glyph origin
Representing a tongue of land or perhaps a standard cultivated parcel (surveyed parcels for farming were usually shaped like elongated trapezoids, with the long sides parallel to the Nile). Compare the Chinese character
η°. This glyph originally developed as a variant of the earlier
(
π). In the 8th Dynasty
(
π) came to be used instead as the determinative for cultivated land, and in the 11th Dynasty this developed into
(
π), but in the 18th Dynasty
became more widely used and took their place as the ordinary determinative for this purpose.
Symbol
- Logogram for jdb (βriverbankβ).
- Determinative for land, particularly cultivated land near water, as in jdb (βriverbankβ), tκ£ (βland, groundβ), dmj (βtown, harborβ).
References
- Gardiner, Alan (1957) Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, third edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, βISBN, page 488
- Henry George Fischer (1988) Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy: A Beginnerβs Guide to Writing Hieroglyphs, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, βISBN, page 35
- BetrΓ², Maria Carmela (1995) Geroglifici: 580 Segni per Capire l'Antico Egitto, Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., βISBN