[meteorite-list] Egyptian Hieroglyph for "heavenly iron" and "heavenly stone"

[bernd.pauli at paulinet.de]

Darren inquired:

"Also, does anyone have an image of the hieroglyph
 for 'heavenly iron' mentioned in that article?"

Hello Darren and List,

The Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for meteoritic iron is rendered by the
following eight signs: leg - flowering reed - Egyptian vulture - tusk
of an elephant - ripple of water - sky - sand grain - and finally three
vertical strokes to indicate a grammatical plural => sand grains and the
symbols should be read as: bjaa-n-pt.

Let's now look at the three hieroglyphic symbols for a meteoritic stone:

a well full of water, a leg, and a garden pool.

This word is pronounced exactly like the above word for meteoritic iron but
without the 'n-pt' syllable. It can also stand for the words 'hematite' or
'magnetite'. Until 1987, the front cover of METEORITICS showed a logo in the
lower right corner which was meant to be a graphic representation of the word
'meteorite' but it was misspelled and resembled more the ancient Egyptian word
for 'iron ore' or 'telluric iron', which is pronounced exactly the same way (=> bjaa).


Cheers,

Bernd