Hieroglyphs Addenda · Signs
eye
| Name | D4 |
|---|---|
| Reads | jr |
| Means | eye |
| Taught in | 03 · To do, to give, to be |
Where it comes from
An eye, drawn whole with its lid-line and inner corner. It is jr,t, “eye,” and writes jr — above all the verb jri̯, “to do, to make,” Egyptian’s busiest verb. It also opens the god’s name Wsjr, Osiris: throne first, then this eye.
How to remember it
The eye oversees the doing: in Egypt what the eye watches gets done, and the same sign carries both. See it, and read either sight or work — the two were never far apart.
In the wild
urn:nabu:aes:bbawgrabinschriften:VE2JSCEGGZGMZARSXOWKDLNQCY:IBUBdzOum4YRQkH6nXREobm4kNg
· license: attribution. The word's spelling is compressed on
the wall.
Piece by piece:
- msdm,t — kohl, the black galena eyeliner of every Egyptian portrait — with this eye-sign sitting in the middle of its own cosmetic
The eye, inside the word for eye-paint: the script at its most literal. The sign is taught in 102’s chapter 03.