Rev. Edward Hincks on the Egyptian Stele, or Tablet. 63 



" blessed," I cannot say; but Mr. Sharpe assigned this meaning to it by decipher- 

 ing ; and though I do not often assent to that gentleman's conclusions, I cannot 

 avoid doing so in this instance. It may possibly represent the idea expressed by 

 the word "blessed ;" but it is possible also, and 1 think much more probable, that 

 it represents some object, the name of which was pronounced in the same manner, 

 or nearly so, as the Egyptian word for " blessed," or as the first syllable in this 

 word. Along with this unknown character, there occur in this title, when 

 written in full, the leaf, answering to the Hebrew Aleph, and which may be 

 read by any vowel ; the sickle M, the sieve CH, and either the pair of leaves 

 EI, or the quail OU. The two latter characters are equivalent to our termina- 

 tion ed ; and have the same effect as the corresponding Hebrew vowels '' and \ 

 when placed before the last radical, in the participle Pahul or the verbal noun 

 of the form Pahil. Rejecting then these servile letters, the Egyptian verb con- 

 sists of three letters nOJ^j in addition to the unknown character ; which I regard 

 as merely determinative, unless it be used as a substitute for the whole word, or 

 for its first syllable, or for the consonant M. To show the manner in which this 

 peculiar character is introduced, I will set down a number of varieties which I 

 have met with ; putting for the common phonetic characters their Hebrew equi- 

 valents, and for the peculiar character an asterisk ; and, for the sake of compari- 

 son, I will do the same thing with the word me, " truth," already mentioned ; 

 the asterisk in it representing its peculiar character, the ostrich feather or the 

 measure. 



Amach, to bless, is written, *n?l3N ; n*50N; T\*ii'i PI*; * 

 Me, truth, is written, *y;a ; i?)D* ; y* ; * 



The peculiar characters belonging to the word me, " truth," are known to 

 be ideagraphic ; but that which distinguishes the word amach, is unknown ; and, 

 as I have already observed, it may be significative of sound. If I must hazard a 

 conjecture, it would be that it represented a vessel holding mud, with the mud 

 flowing out of it ; omi, or ome, is the Coptic for " mud ;" and the old Egyptian 

 word for it probably only differed from this in its vowels.* 



* On communicating my views respecting this word to Mr. Birch, he proposed an objection to 

 them, which I think it right to notice, as I trust I shall be able satisfactorily to remove it. He ob- 

 served that the preposition used between this participle and the name of a deity was " to," not 

 " by," as according to my views it should be. The proposition is bn, answering to the Hebrew 



