Hieroglyphic spellings

This online database is a hieroglyphic dictionary, which means that all hieratic spellings of names are represented by hieroglyphic transcriptions. I follow the standard means of representing Middle Kingdom hieratic in hieroglyphs with one exception. It is customary to represent the shortened form of w (Möller’s sign 200B) with the spiral-shaped hieroglyph (Gardiner’s sign Z7). Instead, I use the same quail chick sign (Gardiner’s sign G43), which is used for the full form of w (Möller’s sign 200). There are three reasons for doing so. First, the sign Z7 is not used in the hieroglyphic texts of the Middle Kingdom and the Second intermediate period. The only exception in my database is statue Moscow I.1.а.6477, which may date from the late Second Intermediate Period or the early 18th Dynasty. Hence, using the sign Z7 in transcriptions of hieratic source creates unnecessary discrepancies between the spellings attested in the hieratic and the hieroglyphic sources. Using the sign Z7 in transcriptions is also inconsistent because other shortened sign forms attested in the hieratic are not represented in hieroglyphs differently from the full forms. That is Möller’s signs 33 and 33B; 192, 192A, and 192B; 196 and 196B are not distinguished in hieroglyphic transcriptions, but 200 and 200B are. Finally, even if I wanted, I would not be able to consistently distinguish between Z7 and G43, because some hieratic sources are only available to me in hieroglyphic transcriptions, which do not observe the difference (Devaud’s transcriptions of the Berlin Lahun papyri) and are not verifiable through photographs. On the contrary, in the New Kingdom material the simplified hieratic sign for w is transcribed with the spiral-shaped hieroglyph (Gardiner’s sign Z7), because this also occurs in hieroglyphic insciptions from this period. Hieroglyphic renderings of spellings in both hieroglyphic and hieratic sources are standardized. Unlike Scheele-Schweitzer 2014, I do not regard spellings differing in the orientation of signs (rotations and mirroring) as different spellings.