Representing a reed mat or a stool of reed matting; presumably the original depiction was a mat. Ordinarily this glyph is taller than it is wide, and, if colored, colored green. Thus, forms from the Old Kingdom often show the details of the weave of the reeds in a bright green. From the Old until the New Kingdom it was occasionally stylized as a rectangle with a shaded left half and unshaded right half. The phonogrammatic value of p is derived by the rebus principle from its use as a logogram for p(âstool, socleâ).
Gardiner, Alan (1957) Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, third edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, âISBN, page 500
Henry George Fischer (1988) Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy: A Beginnerâs Guide to Writing Hieroglyphs, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, âISBN, page 10
BetrĂČ, Maria Carmela (1995) Geroglifici: 580 Segni per Capire l'Antico Egitto, Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., âISBN
Peust, Carsten (1999) Egyptian Phonology: An Introduction to the Phonology of a Dead Language[1], Göttingen: Peust und Gutschmidt Verlag GbR, page 48
