Ankh wedja seneb

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ankh wedja seneb in hieroglyphs
Template:Hiero/era | Era: Template:Hiero/era

Ankh wedja seneb () is an Egyptian phrase which often appears after the names of pharaohs, in references to their household, or at the ends of letters. The formula consists of three Egyptian hieroglyphs without clarification of pronunciation, making its exact grammatical form difficult to reconstruct. It may be expressed as "life, prosperity, and health", but Alan Gardiner proposed that they represented verbs in the stative form:Template:Fact "Be alive, strong, and healthy".

Components

Egyptian hieroglyphs did not record vowel values, making the exact pronunciation of most words unknowable. The conventional Egyptological pronunciations of the words , , and are ankh, wedja and seneb respectively.

• Ankh means "life" and "to have life", "to live",Template:Sfnp particularly with regard to the longevity and resurrection of the ancient Egyptian deities and pharaohs
• Wedja means "to be whole" or "intact",Template:Sfnp with connotations of "prosperity" and "well-being"Template:Sfnp
• Seneb means "to be sound", "to be well", "to be healthy"Template:Sfnp

Rosetta Stone

On the Rosetta Stone (196 BCE), the gods are said to reward the Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes:

"...The gods and goddesses have given him victory, and power, and life, and strength, and health [A.U.S.], and every beautiful thing of every kind whatsoever..."Template:Sfnp

<hiero>R9-R9-R9-.-X7*W24:Z9:D40-N35:M3:Aa1*X1-.-S34-U28-S29-.-F18:D21-Aa1*X1:V30-nfr-D21:F40-O34:N35:Z2</hiero>

ΔΕΔΩΚΑΣΙΝ ΑΥΤΩΙ ΟΙ ΘΕΟΙ ΥΓΙΕΙΑΝ ΝΙΚΗΝ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΑΛΛ ΑΓΑΘ[Α…]

See also

• Ankh

References

Bibliography

• , reprinted at Berlin by Akademie-Verlag GmbH in 1971. Template:In lang
• .