A gold ring set with an Egyptian hieroglyphic seal plaque, a...

A gold ring set with an Egyptian hieroglyphic seal plaque, attributed to the New Kingdom, the gold mount 19th century, the elongated oval seal plaque of dark green stone, probably jasper or serpentine, engraved in intaglio with a vertical arrangement of four hieroglyphic symbols comprising a solar disc, a bent arm holding an upright implement, a rectangular sign and a scarab beetle, the stone set within a later plain gold ring mount with pierced shoulders The signs are provisionally identified, from top to bottom, as the solar disc N5, the bent arm D45, the gaming-board Y5(?), and the scarab beetle L1. The rectangular sign is the least certain identification: its form is compatible with a simplified gaming-board, but the distinguishing details are insufficiently clear to make this reading conclusive. The proposed sign values are therefore R•- dsr - mn(?) - hpr. These identifications follow the standard sign classifications, although their application to the present carving remains interpretative. The arm closely corresponds to D45, representing a bent arm holding a wand or brush and carrying the value dsr, associated with sacredness or splendour. The precise nature of the implement represented by this hieroglyph is itself uncertain; its apparently enlarged terminal should not be identified as a particular flower or plant. On the proposed identification of the rectangle as mn, the solar disc, gaming-board and scarab together supply the components of Menkheperre, Mn-hpr-R, the throne name of Thutmose III, who ruled during the 18th Dynasty, circa 1479-1425 BC. This name is well attested on Egyptian scarabs and seal-plaques. The additional dr sign may qualify the royal name, permitting the tentative interpretation "Sacred is Menkheperre." This remains a proposed reading rather than an established translation: no exact published parallel for the complete four-sign arrangement has been identified in the research Size N 1/2, 3.3 grams, presented in a Victorian hinged tooled leather ‘pony hoof’ shaped jeweller's box

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