Hippopotamus (hieroglyph)

Hippo- potamus db in hieroglyphs

The Hippopotamus hieroglyph is Gardiner sign listed no. E25, in the category of mammals. It is used in Egyptian hieroglyphs as a determinative in words designating the animal, in Egyptian as db, and kh3b.^[1]

The hieroglyph shows the massiveness of the hippo's body, on its short legs. In Late Period Egypt, it was also used for words related to "heavy" (namely dns, udn-(wdn)).^[2]

On the Palermo piece-(obverse) of the 7-piece Palermo Stone of the 24th to 23rd century BC, it can be found in a year-register claiming the King (pharaoh) went on a hippopotamus hunt using "hide with arrow" (F29),

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hippopotamus (hieroglyph).

• Gardiner's Sign List#E. Mammals

• Betrò, 1995. Hieroglyphics: The Writings of Ancient Egypt, Betrò, Maria Carmela, c. 1995, 1996-(English), Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, London, Paris (hardcover, ISBN 0-7892-0232-8)-->
• Budge. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, E.A.Wallace Budge, (Dover Publications), c 1978, (c 1920), Dover edition, 1978. (In two volumes, 1314 pp. and cliv-(154) pp.) (softcover, ISBN 0-486-23615-3)