What 𐧉 means
It is the Meroitic numeral for ten. It is a dedicated tens sign; 1 then 0 is only the Keyman 1.0 keyboard shortcut for entering it. Meroitic text reads right to left, and the font determines the character’s visible outline.
Meroitic Cursive appears by the third century BCE; its earliest datable cursive text is around 200 BCE. Less-evolved inscriptions suggest that the tradition began earlier. This flowing form served documents, accounting records, labels, and other practical writing.
Meroitic numbers used signs for units, tens, hundreds, thousands, and higher ranks. A written potsherd from Qasr Ibrim records these ranks; from 100 upward, multipliers attach to rank signs. Ten belongs to that structured number system.
Why was this numeral made?
For practical counting and records.
Meroitic Cursive was partly derived from Egyptian Demotic, a flowing form of Egyptian writing. Meroitic hieroglyphic developed separately for monumental inscriptions. The two forms belonged to the same writing tradition but served distinct settings.
Historical and specialist; use it in Meroitic writing or typography, not as a general-purpose numeral.
For ordinary modern ten, use 10; 𐧉 signals a Meroitic context.
Who writes 𐧉
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Questions people ask
1Why does 𐧉 show as a box on some devices?
Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.
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How to type or find 𐧉
- Search it as
- Meroitic numeral · Meroitic number 10 · Meroitic numbers · Kushite numerals · Meroitic Cursive keyboard
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
𐧉\109C9Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.