The Tears of Re by Kritsky Gene;

Author:Kritsky, Gene;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2015-09-03T08:06:00+00:00

Figure 7.8 The honey bee hieroglyph (left) with its hieratic counterpart (right). Other examples of hieratic honey bees are shown in Figures 8.2 and 8.3.

Being armed with the knowledge that the royal titulary is associated with a royal cartouche makes tracking down this phrase in various tombs and temples quite easy. In fact, at some temples like the Ramesseum or Medinet Habu, it may seem that it is everywhere.

The honey bee hieroglyph in the titulary (Figure 7.6a) refers to Lower Egypt of the Delta region, but it is also used in various titles that might also be pertinent to the Delta. Visitors to Pabasa’s or Ankhhor’s tomb should be on the lookout for the bee next to the hieroglyph for a cylinder seal, S 19 (Figure 7.6b). In this case, the two symbols refer to the title “Sealer of the King of Lower Egypt.” The sealer could also be thought of as a treasurer.

Naturally, the honey bee hieroglyph is also used when referring to bees and bee products. The most obvious example is the word “bee,” which is formed by three glyphs (Figure 7.6 c): a honey bee, a loaf, and a single stroke or a wooden dowel. When the dowel appears after an ideogram, it indicates that the ideogram signifies the actual object portrayed in the hieroglyph. In this case, the three glyphs mean “bee.” In the Egyptian language, the word for bee is pronounced bỉt; the loaf is the sound t. Egyptians also referred to the honey bee as the “fly of honey” (Ransome 1986).

The word for honey is built on the word for bee. In addition to the honey bee and a loaf, the hieroglyphic word includes some type of vessel and three strokes (Z 2) rather than one (Figure 7.6d). The multiple strokes make the ideogram plural (Gardiner 1988). The word “honey” was found on the last section of the beekeeping relief at Newoserre Any’s sun temple (Figure 2.4). It can also be found in the first delineated column of hieroglyphs on the left above the seated Rekhmire (Figure 4.7); note that the vessel used in the word “honey” is a diamond-shaped vessel similar to those in the beekeeping scene (Figure 4.6). The word “honey” with a different vessel can be found in the Twentieth Dynasty stele of Hori (Figure 7.9). In this case, the vessel used in the word “honey” also indicates the size of the container. The phrase is translated as “honey, mnt-jar” (Janssen 1963).

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