Hieroglyphs Addenda · Signs

𓊹

flag

NameR8
Readsnṯr
Meanstemple flag on a pole — netjer: god
Taught in10 · Life, beauty, becoming

Where it comes from

A cloth pennant wound on a tall pole — the flags that flew before temple gateways. It writes nṯr, “god”: to see the flag was to know a god lived there, and the script kept the shorthand.

How to remember it

The flag marks the god’s address — you cannot see a god, but you can see where one is flown. Wherever divinity enters a word, the temple flag goes up.

In the wild

From a funerary liturgy (aes corpus). urn:nabu:aes:bbawtotenlit:45APBFH7ENHZVHELL64L5XSRBY:IBUBd8Y5Y422G0apoG4ESTPBbac · license: attribution.

Piece by piece:

  • jw≡k m nṯr — you are a god: the flag with the divine falcon
  • pri̯ m nṯr — come forth from a god: the house-plan door doing “forth,” the flag again

The dead man is promoted twice in one line, flag after flag. The sign is taught in 101’s chapter 10.