Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale <al-Qāhira> [Hrsg.]; Mission Archéologique Française <al-Qāhira> [Hrsg.]: Recueil de travaux relatifs à la philologie et à l'archéologie égyptiennes et assyriennes: pour servir de bullletin à la Mission Française du Caire (27.1905)

LE SIGNE \

169

acquired by the offerings, but of the vaguest character. From the offerings to the
gods, the idea of supplies was not wholly wanting, but associated always with some
really sacrificial intent. No imputation of sin from the offerer to the victim was
known generally among the Egyptians, and hence no suoh expiation for sin as was
taught among otlier nations. As the sacrifice was not burned, there was not the idea
of such complète self-dedication as in a holocaust. It may, perhaps, be safely assumed
that the sacrifices were not, for the most part, wasted, after being offered; yet there is
little or no évidence of any proper sacrificial feast. It seems significant that "hotep"
means "peace" or "satisfaction'', but the significance seems to be dissipated when
"hotep" is used for a table for funerary offerings, that were notât ail sacrificial in
character : at best the word only seems to point to a remote period when the true
idea of expiation for sin may have been represented in the Egyptian sacrifices. The
Book of the Dead shows clearly that the Egyptian's liope for the future was in his
good works; of "satisfaction" through the sacrifices he knew nothing, and he says :
"I have appeased God by doing his wilT".

The sacrifices do not appear to have entered at ail into the statutory code, further
than that, as there was a state religion, sacrifices entered very largely into public
f mictions.

Of any typical character in the sacrifices there is not a trace.

LE SIGNE

Fr. W. de Bissing

On a beaucoup cherché pour trouver le mot auquel se rapportait la valeur u, v de ce
signe hiéroglyphique. Le dernier qui s'en est occupé, à mon savoir, M. N. de G. Davies
(The Mastaba of Ptahhetep, t. I, p. 20), n'en sait pas plus que les autres, mais il re-
prend l'opinion certainement erronée, d'après laquelle le signe
en question serait, un poulet et non une caille. Or, en feuille-
tant, l'autre jour, les planches supplémentaires de Lepsius,
j'ai été frappé de la ressemblance que le signe p. y présente
un oiseau *=$=» {Erjrânsunrjsband, XXIII, c), que je re-
trouve, toutefois avec une légère variante, qui semble pro- J"D''U'G9'h!oam-,xxuic.
venir d'une erreur du dessinateur ancien ou moderne, dans Lepsius, Deiihmâler, II,
pl. 09. Le nom y est écrit plus correctement peut-être ^ == \ (cf. sEgyptische

AW#A AAAAM

Inschrifïen ans den kgl. Museen, Berlin, p. 109). N'y aurait-il pas ici le mot dont la
valeur % est dérivée, et "4" ne signifierait-il pas la caille'?

I. Boolc ofthe Dead. Papyrus of Ani. Plate XXXII, 11.

S. Cf. le des sarcophages de Gebelein, Grabfunc/e des mUtleron Reiche, Berlin, t. Il, S. 22, pl. XV

ISliCUIÎlL, XXVII. — NOL'V. SKK-, XI.