, a vase of ointment, is mrḥ.t, “ointment”;
is wdb, “turn.” Much investigation is still required to establish the origins of the values of the signs; in some cases the connexion between the pictures and the primary values seems to be curiously remote. Probably all the signs in the hieroglyphic signary can be employed in their primary sense. The secondary value expresses the consonantal root of the name or other primary value, and any, or almost any, derivative from that root: as when
, a mat with a cake upon it, is not only ḥtp, an “offering-mat,” but also ḥtp in the sense of “conciliation,” “peace,” “rest,” “setting” (of the sun), with many derivatives. In the third place, some signs may be transferred to express another root having the same consonants as the first: thus
, the ear, by a play upon words can express not only śḏm, “hear,” but also śdm, “paint the eyes.”
Phonograms.—Only a limited number of signs are found with this use, but they are of the greatest importance. By searching throughout the whole mass of normal inscriptions, earlier than the periods of Greek and Roman rule when great liberties were taken with the writing, probably no more than one hundred different phonograms can be found. The number of those commonly employed in good writing is between seventy and eighty. The most important phonograms are the uniliteral or alphabetic signs, twenty-four in number in the Old Kingdom and without any homophones: later these were increased by homophones to thirty. Of biliteral phonograms—each expressing a combination of two consonants—there were about fifty commonly used: some fifteen or twenty were rarely used. As Egyptian roots seldom exceeded three letters, there was no need for triliteral phonograms to spell them. There is, however, one triliteral phonogram, the eagle,
