Hieroglyphs Addenda Β· Signs

π“Šƒ

bolt

NameO34
Readsz
Meansdoor bolt
Taught in04 Β· Your first signs

Where it comes from

A door bolt in profile β€” the horizontal bar that slides across to lock a door. It writes z, which by Middle Egyptian had merged in sound with s; the scribes kept both signs anyway, the bolt and the folded cloth, old spelling habits outliving the ear.

How to remember it

The bolt slides with a buzz β€” zzz β€” straight across its door. One long bar, one flat sound; when a word keeps the old z, this is the bar that locks it in.

In the wild

Amarna inscription (aes corpus). urn:nabu:aes:bbawamarna:EIKGCKAHNZGOTKGBXIR2SFEYWU:IBUBd6hlDXaq3U8ygzfYpV2CjOY Β· license: attribution.

Piece by piece:

  • sn tꜣ β€” kissing the earth: the bolt opening the verb of homage
  • n nb-tꜣ,wj β€” for the Lord of the Two Lands, the land-sign compressed to one strip

Courtiers flat on the ground before the king β€” and the bolt-sign starts the bowing. The line was read whole in 102’s chapter 00.