The
ancient EgyptianHill-country or "Foreign land" hieroglyph (π) is a member of the sky, earth, and water hieroglyphs. A form of the hieroglyph in color, has a green line-(banding) at the base of the hieroglyph. The hieroglyph refers to the hills, and mountains, on both sides of the
Nile River, and thus the green references the verdant
black farming land adjacent to the river proper. It is coded N25 in
Gardiner's sign list, and U+13209 in
Unicode. It is a determinative hieroglyph, simply conveying a meaning, and has no phonetic value.[1]
Various colors, and patterning,[2] may adorn the rest of the hieroglyph when the bottom is green.
Three major uses
The
ancientlanguage hilly land hieroglyph has three major uses:
The language meaning of the hieroglyph is as an
ideogram or a determinative in the word khast (khaset), and is often translated as hilly land, desert, foreign land, or district.[3][4]
Use as determinative
One major use of the hill-country hieroglyph is as the determinative for land, but especially the names of foreign lands. For example in the
Merneptah Stele, foreign lands are mentioned, including the name of
Hatti.
One spelling of the foreign peoples, the
Nine bows, is represented by the Hill country hieroglyph, "t", and nine single strokes.[8][9] The nine foreign lands used for the Nine Bows are also iconographically shown inside of
cartouches, with their names. The cartouches are the 'bodies' of the "prisoner", or "
captive", arms tied behind the back, the name of the land/city inside the cartouche.
^"Like many Egyptian words in hieroglyphics, the word βIsraelβ includes an additional sign that lacks any phonetic value. Scholars call such signs determinatives because they indicate the kind of word to which they are attached."
Bible Review. Biblical Archaeology Society. 1997. p. 38.
^"Arachosia, Sattagydia, and India are represented and named among the subject nations sculptured on the base of the Egyptian statue of Darius I from Susa."Yar-Shater, Ehsan (1982).
Encyclopaedia Iranica. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 10.
ISBN9780933273955.
Budge. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary,E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1978, (c 1920), Dover edition, 1978. (In two volumes) (softcover,
ISBN0-486-23615-3)