Hieroglyphs Addenda · Signs
land
| Name | N17 |
|---|---|
| Reads | tꜣ |
| Means | flat strip of land |
| Taught in | 00 · Orientation: the road to reading |
Where it comes from
A flat strip of earth — the alluvial plain in cross-section, sometimes dotted with grains of soil. It writes tꜣ, “land, earth”: the Two Lands (tꜣ,wj) are Egypt itself, and to “kiss the earth” before the king is to press your face to this strip.
How to remember it
The land is a floor as the sky is a ceiling — the world’s other slab. Everything Egyptian happens between the two flat lines.
In the wild
urn:nabu:aes:bbawamarna:EIKGCKAHNZGOTKGBXIR2SFEYWU:IBUBd6hlDXaq3U8ygzfYpV2CjOY
· license: attribution.
Piece by piece:
- sn tꜣ — kissing the earth: this strip, being kissed
- n nb-tꜣ,wj — for the Lord of the Two Lands: the same strip, compressed inside the royal title
The land twice: once under the courtiers’ faces, once in the king’s own title. The line is read in 102’s chapter 00.