An attempt to ascertain the number, names, and powers, of the letters of the hieroglyphic or ancient Egyptian alphabet / [Edward Hincks].

  • Edward Hincks
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An attempt to ascertain the number, names, and powers, of the letters of the hieroglyphic or ancient Egyptian alphabet / [Edward Hincks]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    minatives. This appears to me radically connected with npn, and I accordingly reject the arm as an expletive. In confirmation of this, it may be stated that Chevalier Bunsen, though he states the character to have been originally sylla- bic with the value xer, admits that it was subsequently xa, being completed with the arm. This remark implies that he, or Dr. Lepsius, or Mr. Birch, had met with some word in which the arm sometimes followed it, and sometimes did not. According to their view, such a character should be supplied when not expressed; but according to mine the inference should rather be that it was an expletive. I have not noticed the character as in use before the second period, when it occurs as an ideoglyph on the stele in the Louvre, Leps. ix., and as a phonoglyph in Sharpe,38,4; but as this word is found written in Sharpe, 80,9, without the mouth, which here follows it, and as the same thing occurs in respect to XPoTi in Sharpe, 8, I infer that this character was in the second and third periods a syllabic sign for xer. In the age of the papyri, however, it had become decidedly alphabetic. 54. A coil of rope (M 4 ; m 4) was valued by Champollion as an M. Lep- sius supposed it, when followed by a mouth, to express the syllable rer. Cheva- lier Bunsen adopts this value, though, it would appear, with some misgivings, placing the character among his mischbilds. I am satisfied that Champollion was in this instance right. The character occurs as initial in the word MuR, “to surround,” Coptic JULOTp, and in MNa, “ a weight,” etymologically connected with rm and pvd, and probably not differing much in value from either. This word occurs frequently in the historical inscription of Thothmos III., at the Louvre, the metals yielded by the vanquished nations being numbered in it, while the liquids are numbered in the MeN (written as in fig. 8), a measure evidently derived from the same root, which we find in men-sura, as well as in the Hebrew n]Q. This character also occurs in a word of unknown meaning (Sharpe, 80, 11), PI, X3, M4, to which should perhaps be added N 1 ; and in the adverb TuM, also, which occurs on the statue of Queen Amunet in her nurse’s arms (Sharpe, 170, 30). This appears to me connected with the CopticT(jojul, conjungere. This character is never used, so far as I am aware, with an exple- tive. It was in use in the second period, occurring Sharpe, 38, 4. It is formed in two ways, both of which are given in the plate ; and it must not be confounded with a somewhat similar character (fig. 182), which is used for UTeN, “ to offer,” and as a determinative sign after this and other words of like meaning.
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