Egyptian Hieroglyph B68

It writes an Egyptian word for old age. B68 is a logogram, a sign that represents a whole word; Egyptologists describe its function as “to be old, old age.” The standing woman with a fork-ended staff is the sign’s form, while its written meaning concerns age.

A related Egyptian word for “old man,” conventionally written jꜣw in Egyptological transliteration, appears in records from 2375 BCE to 14 CE. A related form in Demotic, a later cursive Egyptian script, is recorded from 30 BCE to 324 CE. These dates track the word across periods; Unicode encoded this B68 character in 2024, a digital encoding date rather than its ancient origin.

Did Egyptian texts treat old age in different ways?

They describe both decline and exceptional longevity. The Instructions of Ptahhotep and the Story of Sinuhe dwell on weakness and fading senses. The Middle Kingdom story Papyrus Westcar offers a more admiring picture, presenting the magician Djedi as exceptionally long-lived and healthy. The age-word can appear in very different portraits; the sign alone does not set the tone.

Why isn't 𓜡 visible?

A box means the font cannot draw this sign. Unicode assigns the character, but a device still needs a font with a matching glyph; some fonts omit Egyptian Hieroglyphs Extended-A signs.

Egyptian inscriptions arranged signs in compact, roughly square groups called quadrats. Unicode encodes 𓜡 as one sign; separate format-control characters arrange signs vertically or horizontally. Without those controls, a sequence of signs may appear in a row.