Akhet (
Ancient Egyptian: Ꜣḫt;
Gardiner:N27) is an
Egyptianhieroglyph that represents the sun rising over a mountain. It is translated as "
horizon" or "the place in the sky where the sun rises".[1] Betrò describes it as "Mountain with the Rising Sun" (The hieroglyph for "mountain" is
𓈋) and an
ideogram for "horizon".[2]
Akhet appears in the Egyptian name for the
Great Pyramid of
Giza (Akhet Khufu),[3] and in the assumed name of
Akhetaten, the city founded by
pharaohAkhenaten.[4] It also appears in the name of the syncretized form of
Ra and
Horus,
Ra-Horakhty (Rꜥ Ḥr Ꜣḫty, "Ra–Horus of the Horizons").[5]
In
ancient Egyptian architecture, the
pylon mirrored the hieroglyph.[6][7] The symbol is sometimes connected with the astrological sign of
Libra[8] and the Egyptian deity
Aker, who guards the eastern and western horizons.
References
Citations
^Gardiner, Alan H. (1957). Egyptian grammar : being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 1969 printing (3rd ed.). London: Published on behalf of the Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, by Oxford University Press. p. 489.
ISBN9780900416354.
OCLC229894.