Representing a door bolt used in double doors. The bulges in the center kept the bolt restrained between two fastening rings on one door; slid from one end to the other, it would pass through a third fastening ring on the other door and so lock it. When summarized, the bulges could be reduced to a pair of rounded dots. This glyph was conventionally colored red. The phonogrammatic value derives by the rebus principle from its use as a logogram for z (“door bolt”).
(z, s)
- Uniliteral phonogram for z; after Old Egyptian, this phoneme merged with s, so that this glyph became an alternative phonogram for s.
- Logogram for z (“door bolt; being; type of fish”).
- Logogram for ḫm (“Letopolis”), by confusion with (𓋉). [since the Middle Kingdom]
Homophonic to
(𓋴) after Old Egyptian, when the two sounds merged.
- Gardiner, Alan (1957) Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, third edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 496
- Henry George Fischer (1988) Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy: A Beginner’s Guide to Writing Hieroglyphs, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, →ISBN, page 12
- Betrò, Maria Carmela (1995) Geroglifici: 580 Segni per Capire l'Antico Egitto, Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., →ISBN
- Peust, Carsten (1999) Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language[1], Göttingen: Peust und Gutschmidt Verlag GbR, page 48
