Gardiner's Sign List is a list of common Egyptian hieroglyphs compiled by Sir Alan Gardiner. It is considered a standard reference in the study of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Gardiner lists only the most common forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs, but he includes extensive subcategories, and also both vertical and horizontal forms for many hieroglyphs. He includes size-variation forms to aid with the reading of hieroglyphs in running blocks of text. (The Budge Reference has about 1000 hieroglyphs listed in 50 pages, but with no size varieties.)
Unfortunately he does not cross index signs, once put on the list, other significant uses may be overlooked. One example of this is G16, nbtỉ, the ideogram for The Two Ladies, goddesses Wadjet as cobra and Nekhbet as the white vulture. These are the protecting and patron goddesses of the separate Egyptian kingdoms that joined into Ancient Egypt, who were both then displayed on the uraeus of Wadjet when the unification occurred and afterward considered jointly to be the protectors of Egypt and the pharaohs. This ideogram is listed only on the bird list as G16, and overlooked on the deity list and the reptile list.
Other subcategories included by Gardiner are abbreviations and personalized forms, and also a complete subset, used on papyrus, specifically for the Book of the Dead.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list and/or hieroglyphs:
“Every morning I woke in dread, waiting for the day nurse to go on her rounds and announce from the list of names in her hand whether or not I was for shock treatment, the new and fashionable means of quieting people and of making them realize that orders are to be obeyed and floors are to be polished without anyone protesting and faces are to be made to be fixed into smiles and weeping is a crime.”
—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
“A man’s interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The feet of the rats
scribble on the doorsills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)