The ancient Egyptian

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 Atef crown hieroglyph is one of a series of language

Egyptian language

Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...

 hieroglyphs related to Ancient Egyptian crown

Crown (headgear)

A crown is the traditional symbolic form of headgear worn by a monarch or by a deity, for whom the crown traditionally represents power, legitimacy, immortality, righteousness, victory, triumph, resurrection, honour and glory of life after death. In art, the crown may be shown being offered to...

s, staves

Stick fighting

Stick fighting is a generic term for martial arts which use simple long slender, blunt, hand-held, generally wooden 'sticks' for fighting such as a staff, cane, walking stick, baton or similar....

, dress

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

, etc. Though used in the hieroglyphic language, the Atef crown is probably more commonly found in iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

, in tomb relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s, wall scenes, statuary, or representations of the Pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

, or gods.

The crown is composed of a double fringe of feathers attached to a white crown-shape, with horizontal ram's horns. The feathers are identified as ostrich from their curl at the upper ends, with a slight flare toward the base (compare with falcon feathers in two-feather crowns, which are narrow and straight). This crown is particularly associated with the cult of Osiris

Osiris

Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...

, who is always pictured wearing a white crown in Atef style with ostrich feathers.

Atef crown in language

The Atef Crown hieroglyph has an ideogram usage-(as the Atef Crown), and the determinative

Determinative

A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may derive historically from glyphs for real words, and...

 use in the name of the crown: 3tf-(atef).

Example usage: a signet ring

An example of a signet ring is shown with the Atef Crown as a component surmounting the cartouche

Cartouche

In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an ellipse with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu, replacing the earlier serekh...

. Pharaoh Cheops of the 4th Dynasty

Fourth dynasty of Egypt

The fourth dynasty of ancient Egypt is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom. Dynasty IV lasted from ca. 2613 to 2494 BC...

 is commemorated with a ring produced in the 26th Dynasty

Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt

The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC . The Dynasty's reign The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (also written Dynasty XXVI or Dynasty 26) was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC...

, or 27th Dynasty

Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt

The Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt also known as the First Egyptian Satrapy was effectively a province of the Achaemenid Perisan Empire between 525 BCE to 402 BCE. The last pharaoh of the Twenty-Sixth dynasty, Psamtik III, was defeated by Cambyses II of Persia in the battle of Pelusium in the...

.

Iconographic usage by pharaohs and gods

Many examples are known of the Atef crown used in temple relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

s, statues, etc.

See also

• Gardiner's Sign List#S. Crowns, Dress, Staves, etc.
• Atef
  Atef
  Atef is the specific feathered white crown of the Egyptian Deity Osiris. It combines the Hedjet, the crown of Upper Egypt, with red ostrich feathers for the Osiris cult. The feathers are identified as ostrich from their curl or curve at the upper ends, with a slight flare toward the base. They are...
  
  
• Osiris
  Osiris
  Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...