mdw (“staff”) + jꜣw (“old age”) in a direct genitive construction, thus literally ‘staff of old age’.
m
- a son who assumes the duties of his aged father, allowing the father to remain in office, supported by his son, who carries out the father’s responsibilities as deputy [Middle Kingdom and 18th Dynasty]
c. 1900 BCE,
The Instructions of Ptahhotep (
pPrisse/pBN 186–194) lines 5.2–5.3:
- wḏ.t(w) n bꜣk jm jrt mdw-jꜣw jḫ ḏd.j n.f mdw sḏmyw sḫrw jmjw-ḥꜣt pꜣw sḏm n nṯrw
- May your humble servant (i.e. the father) be commanded to make his son his deputy (literally, “a staff of old age”); then I will tell him the words of the listeners, the advice of ancestors who once listened to the gods.
Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mdw-jꜣw
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mdw-jꜣw
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mdw n jꜣw
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mdw-jꜣw
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18th Dynasty
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18th Dynasty
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- Allen, James Peter (2015) Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 168–169
- Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache[1], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 178.11
- Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 122