rnpt ḥsb
Egyptian
Etymology
From rnpt (“year”) + ḥsb (“counting”) in a direct genitive construction, thus literally ‘year of counting’.
Pronunciation
- (reconstructed) IPA(key): /ˌɾanpatˈħaːsab/ → /ˌɾanpaʔˈħaːsab/ → /ˌɾənpəˈħoːsəβ/
- (modern Egyptological) IPA(key): /rɛnpɛt ħɛsɛb/
- Conventional anglicization: renpet heseb
Noun
|
f
- regnal year
Usage notes
rnpt ḥsb is used almost solely for dating years of a king’s reign. In the Old Kingdom it is followed by the ordinal of the year, while from the start of the Middle Kingdom it is instead followed by the feminine cardinal number of the year.
Allen interprets this term as rnpt ḥsb, while von Beckerath reads it as ḥsbt; in either case it is a feminine derivative of ḥsb. The traditional earlier interpretations of this term as ḥꜣt-zp (literally “front of time”), following Kurt Sethe, or rnpt-zp, following Elmar Edel, are no longer regarded as correct.
Inflection
Theoretically thus, but in practice unlikely to occur in any form other than the singular:
| singular | rnpt ḥsb |
|---|---|
| dual | rnptj ḥsb |
| plural | rnpwt ḥsb |
Alternative forms
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||||||||
| rnpt | rnpt ḥsb | rnpt | ḥsb | ḥsb |
Descendants
- *(rnpt) ḥsb wꜥt
- Coptic: ⲁⲥⲫⲟⲩⲓ (asphoui) (Bohairic)
References
- James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 108.
- von Beckerath, Jürgen (1969) “Die Lesung von
„Regierungsjahr“: ein neuer Vorschlag” in Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, volume 95, issue 1, page 88–91
- Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1926–1961) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN
- Faulkner, Raymond (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN