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MS: Despite having just read the number, he fails to understand that it must be rotated and not just flipped, to remain readable as hieratic.

Vyse has no knowledge of hieratic. He looks as these signs as 'painted hieroglyphics'. In his own book he calls these painted signs 'hieroglyphics'. As such, Vyse probably believed that these signs being merely painted hieroglyphics could be read from either direction so it simply doesn't matter if these particular signs are merely flipped as opposed to being rotated. Also, there is no sign in these hieratic numbers to give the read direction.

It is, imo, Vyse's likely understanding of hieroglyphic reading conventions (as opposed to hieratic reading conventions) that resulted in this rather obvious hieratic number anomaly. It's certainly not a mistake an AE scribe would likely have made in presenting these numerals.

SC



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 14-Feb-18 17:35 by Scott Creighton.