The Most Intriguing Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics have long captured the imaginations of scholars and casual observers alike, and efforts to translate them date back to the ninth century CE. Yet hieroglyphics remained mostly indecipherable until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799. Early progress was made by English polymath Thomas Young in the 1810s, and French linguist Jean-François Champollion completed a breakthrough translation that he presented in Paris on September 27, 1822.

The accuracy of Champollion’s translation was a watershed moment that enabled a greater understanding of hieroglyphs, leading to deeper and wider-ranging study. In 1927, English Egyptologist Alan Gardiner published the reference work Egyptian Grammar, which included an appendix compiling the major hieroglyphs and their meanings, known as Gardiner’s Sign List, a reference standard still used today.

You don’t need to have a complete understanding of exactly how hieroglyphs function amid the rules of grammar in order to find them fascinating, though. Many symbols represent items that in turn provide glimpses into life in ancient Egypt and its advanced state as a civilization. The following hieroglyphs do just that — and we’ll use the names and reference points from Gardiner’s list to help illuminate them.

Y6: Board Game Piece

The hieroglyph numbered Y6 in Gardiner’s Sign List is a simple pointed oblong shape that isn’t especially visually compelling. But it represents a board game piece (in Gardiner’s text, a “draughtman” for a “draught board”), and there’s something undeniably intriguing about a hieroglyph that proves board games existed thousands of years ago. The piece depicted in this hieroglyph was either for a game called senet net hab (usually referred to as senet), or for a game called twenty squares.

Senet was a spiritually significant game, as “senet net hab” translates to “game of passing through.” The game is thought to represent the progression from life to the afterlife. Queen Nefertari’s tomb contains a painting depicting her playing senet against an invisible opponent; King Tutankhamun was buried with at least five senet boards.

U37: Razor

Shaving may not be an activity you’d immediately associate with ancient Egypt, but hieroglyph U37 depicts exactly that: a razor used for grooming. Depictions of shaving indicate that it was primarily undertaken by the upper class, while lower classes wore their hair untrimmed. The razors themselves were not very sharp; they were most commonly made of flint for a majority of ancient Egyptian history.

A59: Man Threatening With a Stick

An illustration of threat and potential violence, hieroglyph A59 is usually defined contextually as “to drive away.” Along with the more militaristic hieroglyphs A10-15, this glyph is reminiscent of ancient Egypt’s tendency toward corporal punishment and intimidation, a relatively little-discussed aspect of the civilization. While we know that Egypt was a punitive society, and its laws were decreed by the pharaoh, we do not know what the actual Egyptian code of law was: Artifacts have been found documenting legal transactions, but no documents describing an overarching legal code remain in existence.

A36: Man Kneading and Straining Into a Vessel

A somewhat cryptic-looking hieroglyph at first glance, the figure leaning over a pot represents a brewer straining beer into a vessel. Beer was an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture, both as a part of the everyday diet, and as a celebratory indulgence during religious festivals. It was also important sustenance for workers — builders of the pyramids of Giza were rationed 1.3 gallons of beer each day, which equates to approximately 10 pints. There’s even clear evidence that beer in ancient Egypt was brewed to industrial-level scale. In 2021, the excavation of a roughly 5,000-year-old brewery was completed, revealing a compound that scientists estimate could produce around 20,000 liters per batch.

The beer of ancient Egypt was much sweeter than we’re accustomed to today. It was made without hops (which didn’t become a standard ingredient until the Middle Ages) and flavored with fruits such as dates, as well as a mix of herbs and spices that seem closely approximated by the modern za'atar spice mix. Of course, flavor is subjective, but those who have attempted to recreate the Egyptian beer have reported that it tastes surprisingly good.

D35: Arms in Gesture of Negation

This is an example of a hieroglyph that can have several different meanings, depending on the context. It can function as a negative modifier in a sentence, or as a preposition. It can also express concepts of unknowingness, such as forgetfulness or ignorance. But in some instances, it can function as a representation of a very specific thing: the spleen. This usage is the most intriguing for its indication that the ancient Egyptians had an advanced understanding of internal anatomy.

The Egyptians, in fact, had an advanced understanding of medicine overall. We know that they practiced surgery, diagnosed and treated diseases (even cancer), and used various plants and minerals for therapeutic measures. As this hieroglyph suggests, they also documented their medical practices, and compiled various disease remedies and findings in a number of different papyrus collections, the most famous of which is known as the Ebers papyrus. Though there was also a distinct element of folk magic mixed in, the legacy of Egyptian medicine lives in modern medical practices.

D64: Hand With Palm Down

There is some disagreement around the interpretation of hieroglyph D64. Some interpret it as simply a hand with the palm down, while others have a more gruesome take: a severed hand. There is evidence that it was an ancient Egyptian war custom to take the hands of vanquished enemy combatants as trophies to present to the pharaoh. This practice served a dual purpose of tallying defeated foes and, on a more spiritual level, preventing them from “raising their hands” against Egypt again in the afterlife.

U13: Plough

The plough hieroglyph also means “seed,” and the overarching symbolism points toward farming. Ancient Egyptians were among the earliest practitioners of agriculture, and there is evidence that suggests farming in the region may have occurred as early as 7,000 years ago. Villages in the Nile valley were raising pigs, sheep, and goats, and cultivating crops such as emmer wheat, barley, cotton, and flax. The ancient Egyptians used the emmer wheat to bake breads that were primarily shaped like flatbreads, or rolled into a conical shape (depicted by hieroglyph X8).