Ankh
The symbol often appeared in Egyptian art as a physical object representing either life or related life-giving substances such as air or water.
Commonly depicted in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, sometimes being given by them to the pharaoh, it represents their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.
[6] The three consonants also compose the word for a looped rope-like object found in illustrations on many coffins from the Middle Kingdom[4] (c. 2050–1650 BC).
For these reasons, the Egyptologists Heinrich Schäfer and Henry Fischer thought the two signs had a common origin,[11] and they regarded the ankh as a knot that was used as an amulet rather than for any practical purpose.
This practice, known as the rebus principle, allowed the Egyptians to write the words for things that could not be pictured, such as abstract concepts.
He pointed out that the sandal-strap illustrations on Middle Kingdom coffins resemble the hieroglyph, and he argued that the sign originally represented knots like these and came to be used in writing all other words that contained the consonants Ꜥ-n-ḫ.
[14] Gardiner's hypothesis persists; James P. Allen, in an introductory book on the Egyptian language published in 2014, assumes that the sign originally meant "sandal strap" and uses it as an example of the rebus principle in hieroglyphic writing.
A problem with this argument, which Loret acknowledged, is that deities are frequently shown holding the ankh by its loop, and their hands pass through it where the solid reflecting surface of an ankh-shaped mirror would be.
[19] As the sign represented the power to bestow life, humans other than the pharaoh were rarely shown receiving or holding the ankh before the end of the Middle Kingdom, although this convention weakened thereafter.
The pharaoh to some extent represented Egypt as a whole, so by giving the sign to him, the gods granted life to the entire nation.
The Egyptians wore amulets in daily life as well as placing them in tombs to ensure the well-being of the deceased in the afterlife.
Egyptian faience, a ceramic that was usually blue or green, was the most common material for ankh amulets in later times, perhaps because its color represented life and regeneration.
[25] The people of Syria and Canaan adopted many Egyptian artistic motifs during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1950–1500 BC), including hieroglyphs, of which the ankh was by far the most common.
[27] Artwork in the Meroitic Kingdom, which lay south of Egypt and was heavily influenced by its religion, features the ankh prominently.
It appears in temples and funerary art in many of the same contexts as in Egypt, and it is also one of the most common motifs in the decoration of Meroitic pottery.
In 2015, a clay seal (or bulla) belonging to King Hezekiah of Judah (c. 700 BC) was discovered in Jerusalem, which featured ankhs on either side of a winged sun figure.
[32] According to Socrates of Constantinople, when Christians were dismantling Alexandria's greatest temple, the Serapeum, in 391 AD, they noticed cross-like signs inscribed on the stone blocks.
[34] There is little evidence for the use of the crux ansata in the western half of the Roman Empire,[35] but Egyptian Coptic Christians used it in many media, particularly in the decoration of textiles.
