Sign list

The 1071 hieroglyphs from Unicode 5.2

Relations between signs

For each sign, listed are other signs that occur therein as smaller components.

We distinguish between two kinds of graphical variants. For the strictest kind, tagged simply 'variant', there would be no difference in a reasonably detailed description of what is depicted. The mentioned sign is the one that is preferable for certain types of normalization. For those variants tagged 'similar', the meaning and range of use are roughly the same, but there is a clear difference in the appearance (excluding mirroring, rotation and scaling), and it is conceivable this could affect the range of use or nuances of meaning in certain contexts.

Further, listed are signs with similar appearances that have often been confused in ancient times, in hieratic or in hieroglyphic texts or in both. The next column lists distinct signs that may be confused by a modern encoder using computer fonts.

For both kinds of confusion, the distinction can often only be made by looking at the context of use. We recommend that when encoding texts, the choice of signs is guided by meaning rather than appearance, in cases where the appearance leaves doubt which sign was meant. For example, an occurrence of O39 O39 in a hieroglyphic text that happens to be somewhat wider than usual should still be encoded as such, rather than as N37 N37. Similarly, U42 U42 should not be encoded as O30 O30 rotated by a half-turn.

However, if it is apparent that the mistake was made in the original manuscript, then the mistake should be present in the encoding as well, possibly clarified by a footnote.