Meroitic Cursive Number Twenty

It marks twenty in the Meroitic numeral system.

Meroitic numerals used base ten within right-to-left text. Rather than write twenty as two modern digits, the system had a dedicated sign for twenty and other signs for tens. Numerals appear in administrative records for taxes and measurements, and in funerary and monumental writing for dates and quantities.

Meroitic writing developed in Kush, a kingdom in Nubia. Its cursive form appears in the 3rd century BCE; the earliest dated cursive text is from about 200 BCE and names King Arnekhamani. Cursive was the general-use form, alongside a hieroglyphic form used for royal monuments and temples.

What happened to Meroitic writing?

It gradually gave way to other languages and scripts.

Meroitic writing continued through the fourth century CE as Nubian gradually replaced the Meroitic language. By the sixth century, Coptic writing had displaced the Meroitic scripts in the region and incorporated three cursive Meroitic signs for writing Nubian.

Is this numeral directly from Egypt?

Egyptian influence is real, but the numeral's path is less direct.

Meroitic Cursive drew partly on Demotic, a cursive form of Egyptian writing. The number signs complicate that story: comparisons link 6, 10, and 20 with late Egyptian Hieratic, another Egyptian writing form, while Meroitic cursive letters are generally linked to Demotic. Similar shapes alone do not prove that 𐧊 was copied from a particular Egyptian sign.