Egyptian
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Top left: hieroglyph B1 (stylized); right: in color, 18th Dynasty.
Bottom left: hieratic, 5th Dynasty; right: 20th Dynasty.
Glyph origin
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Representing a seated woman wrapped tightly in a dress or cloak and wearing a long wig, essentially portraying a woman in a generic pose to draw little attention to any particular action or quality other than womanhood. Compare the Chinese character
女. Old Kingdom inscriptions often show this hieroglyph as slightly smaller than the seated man,
(
𓀀), but in later times they are of equal size.
Conventionally, the woman's skin is colored yellow, distinguishing her from men (who have red skin). The hair is conventionally black; the robe is conventionally either white or (starting in the Third Intermediate Period) sometimes dark red.
- Logogram for .j (first-person suffix pronoun) when the speaker is female. [since the 19th Dynasty]
- Determinative for the relations, occupations, and names of women and words associated with the female sphere in general.
- Part of the combination , a determinative for groups of people, as in rmṯw (“people”).
References
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- Gardiner, Alan (1957) Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, third edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 448
- Henry George Fischer (1988) Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Hieroglyphs, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN
- Betrò, Maria Carmela (1995) Geroglifici: 580 Segni per Capire l'Antico Egitto, Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., →ISBN
