https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551012
Athos77 added the following context when this was posted back on Kbin (RIP)
The inscription reads right to left on all three lines. Starting with the bottom line the hieroglyphs translate as follows:
Duck: biliteral sign sA (“son”)
Red crown of northern/lower Egypt: uniliteral sign n (preposition “of”)
Reed leaf: uniliteral sign i
Senet game board: biliteral sign mn
Water squiggle: uniliteral sign n (phonetic complement, simply reinforces the reading of mn)
Seated man: determinative (word classifier, not read aloud)Put together, you get his name sA-n-Imn, or Sienamun as the Met calls him. Translated literally, “son of (the god) Amun.”
The first two lines note that Sienamun was not only a priest (Hm-nTr) but also an overseer of horses (imy-r smsmw).
Decoding the hieroglyphs from the very beginning must’ve been a nightmare, wtf
They had help from the Rosetta Stone. Otherwise they may never have fully translated it.
Watch The British Museum’s Curator’s Corner on youtube. They have a bunch of videos with Dr Ilona Regulski. She’s so good at explaining how to read these heiroglyphs and the story of how we decoded them.
Here is one link but she has a bunch more on youtube
Will do!
It sounds like it was almost his ID badge, with his name and position. I wonder what happened if he was elevated to a new position, or worse, removed from being the master of horse?
D-R-I-N-K-Y-O-U-R-O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E
FYI the ring has hieroglyphs, not hieroglyphics, Pug.
Hieroglyphs are the name of the writing. Heiroglyphic is the adjective. So these are hieroglyphs written in hieroglyphic writing.
Fixed!
The detail is amazing. I’d love to see one made.
I’m assuming it was used as a stamp for clay?
anyone knows what it means
It’s in negative relief which would make it a bad stamp for clay or even wax. You generally want positive relief stamps for that to make clear marks and not get anything stuck in the spaces.
thanks, didn’t know that
Not sure if it’s a signet ring or not. There’s a translation in a comment below.
