One of the most distinctive of all Egyptian symbols, recognised widely even by people who have no knowledge of hieroglyphs, is the ankh. This upright cross, with a loop replacing the top vertical, is a popular decorative element used on all sorts of tourist souvenirs, from jewellery to tea towels and, because of its resemblance to a keyhole, the fobs of many Egyptian hotel keys. For the Copts, the ultimate descendants of the ancient Egyptians, the ankh is known as the crux ansata, a form of Christian cross typical of the Coptic Church. Various alternative cultures of the 20th-century Western world have adopted the ankh as an emblem of peace and love, and it has become accepted as a symbol of ancient Egyptian esotericism and African origins.
The meaning of ankh in the ancient Egyptian language is ‘life’ and derivative words such as ‘to live’ and ‘living’ or ‘alive’. As is usual with hieroglyphs used to convey such abstract concepts, the ankh was chosen on the principle of homophony, where two or more words have similar pronunciation, despite having very different meanings. When written in full, the ankh is accompanied by two alphabetic hieroglyphs which emphasise the phonetic value of the basic sign. To distinguish between different meanings of ankh, an additional sign – known as a determinative – defined the nature of the word. But, most often, the ankh sign appears without the extra signs, especially when combined with other amuletic hieroglyphs as part of a decorative frieze in temple decoration.
Although it must have been a commonplace item for the Egyptians, the nature of the object represented by the ankh is not immediately apparent to modern eyes. Traditionally, a single-stroke determinative indicated when the word was exactly what the sign depicted and, in the case of the ankh, this is a sandal strap. The Egyptians, even the kings, are commonly depicted barefoot, but sandals of leather or papyrus were worn for practical and ceremonial purposes, and were provided for the dead. Among the offerings for the support of life after death painted on the interior walls of Middle Kingdom coffins, sandals were frequently shown next to a mirror, for which the word was the ankh followed by the determinative for metal (as described in my article in AE 138). Since the words for both these funerary offerings are homophones for ‘life’, this seems to be an example of the Egyptian fondness for metaphorical representation.
