Akhet (hieroglyph)

Akhet (Ancient Egyptian: Ꜣḫt; Gardiner: N27) is an Egyptian hieroglyph that represents the sun rising over a mountain. It is translated as "horizon" or "the place in the sky where the sun rises".[1] Betrò describes it as "Mountain with the Rising Sun" (The hieroglyph for "mountain" is 𓈋) and an ideogram for "horizon".[2]

N27
Akhet (horizon)
in hieroglyphs

Akhet appears in the Egyptian name for the Great Pyramid of Giza (Akhet Khufu),[3] and in the assumed name of Akhetaten, the city founded by pharaoh Akhenaten.[4] It also appears in the name of the syncretized form of Ra and Horus, Ra-Horakhty (Rꜥ Ḥr Ꜣḫty, "Ra–Horus of the Horizons").[5]

Hieroglyphic for the horizon guarded by Aker.

In ancient Egyptian architecture, the pylon mirrored the hieroglyph.[6][7] The symbol is sometimes connected with the astrological sign of Libra[8] and the Egyptian deity Aker, who guards the eastern and western horizons.

References

Citations

  1. Gardiner, Alan H. (1957). Egyptian grammar : being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 1969 printing (3rd ed.). London: Published on behalf of the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, by Oxford University Press. p. 489. ISBN 9780900416354. OCLC 229894.
  2. Betrò (1995), p. 161.
  3. Verner 2001, p. 189.
  4. David 1998, p. 125.
  5. Watterson 2013, p. 59, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
  6. Wilkinson 2005, p. 195.
  7. Krupp 1993, p. 308-310.
  8. Nozedar, Adele (2010). The illustrated signs & symbols sourcebook : an A to Z compendium of over 1000 designs. Sterling Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 978-1-4351-6181-8. OCLC 960951107.

Bibliography

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