biconsonantal sign
A sign writing two consonants.

biscript
A text written in two scripts.

cartouche
An elongated shen sign enclosing royal names, symbolic of the king's power encircling (shen) the world, and a protective emblem.

cuneiform
Type of script with signs comprising wedge-shaped lines, originally written on mud tablets, used to write a range of languages, including Akkadian and Sumerian.

demotic
The highly cursive Egyptian script and the language written in this script.

determinative
A sign indicating the lexical class of a word in Egyptian.

hieratic
A cursive version of the hieroglyphic script, designed to be written by pens.

hieroglyph
A sign of the ancient Egyptian writing script, comprising pictorial images.

ideogram
A sign recording a concept or idea

ligature
Two or more signs joined together

logogram
A sign that records the meaning but not the pronunciation of a word/morpheme.

orthography
The standardized spelling of words and texts.

ostracon
A flake of limestone or pottery used as a convenient, and often disposable, writing surface.

palette
1 . Portable surface on which to grind pigments and eye-paint, often ceremonial; 2. Scribal implement, usually combining pen-case and inkwells.

phoneme
A minimal sound of speech.

phonogram
A sign that records a sound.

rubric
Phrase or passage of a manuscript which is written in red ink.

scarab
beetles (dung beetles) made of various materials including stone and glazed eathernware and used for decorative and amuletic functions. Scarab’s served as symbols for the life-cylce (mirrored in the dung beetle rolling his ball of dung to his burrow, as the sun rolls across the sky) and daily voyage of the sun. The flat undersides were often inscribed with prayers or spells. The Heart Scarab was inscribed in the Book of the Dead and was embedded in the bandages of the mummy.

shabti
A funerary statuette placed in the tomb to act as a substitute of the deceased for labour-duty in the other world, often commemorative.

stela
An inscribed and/or decorative tablet.

syllabary
A type of writing system whose signs record syllables.

transcription
The Egyptological process of copying an inscription or cursive text into modern versions of the hieroglyphic signs.

transliteration
The Egyptological process of transferring a text from the Egyptian scripts into a modified version of the roman alphabet.

triconsonantal sign
A sign recording three consonants.

true-of-voice
An epithet referring to judgement after death, thus indicating the person as'deceased1.

Two Lands
Egypt: the strips of land on either side of the Nile, the two halves of the country.

uniconsonantal sign
A sign recording a single consonant.

uraeus
An image of a serpent worn on the royal brow, a protective symbol to strike down the king's enemies.

wedjet
The very familiar Egyptian eye symbol, standing for the eye of Horus. The eye was ripped out by Seth while Horus was sleeping, who in retaliation ripped of Seth’s testicles. Thoth found the eye for Horus and returned it. The all-seeing eye would observe for the gods and carry out vengeance on their behalf. Sometimes this vengeful arm of the gods was conflated with Hathor-Sekhmet