IFAO

The word ḥpt is most often translated by "oar" although the numerous entries in the Egyptian dictionaries show the embarrassment of the Egyptologists concerning its exact meaning. In the Old Kingdom ḥpt was only written with the phonogram , ḥp. It never referred to the part of a boat (oar, rudder...) nor to another object, and the nature of the object depicted by this sign still remains undetermined. Ḥpt is a verbal noun made from the verb root ḥp(ỉ), "to run, travel", and exclusively describes a travel, either fast or not, either by land or not. Consequently, depending on the context, ḥpt may be translated by "course, travel, journey". The related verbal expressions ỉṯỉ ḥpt and, later and more rarely, ỉrỉ and ỉnỉ ḥpt are to be understood in the same way: "to make a travel, to travel". However, in the later part of his reign, King Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh Dynasty introduced the oar-sign in place of the usual sign in the spelling of his throne name Nb-ḥpt-R.ʿ. Such a new spelling, based on ideological grounds, was certainly intended to emphasize the association of the king with the god Re aboard the solar bark in its daily course, in connexion with the ritual navigation for the god Amun-Re created in Thebes at that time. This writing of ḥpt with the oar-sign only became widespread from the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards. The oar-sign was then used either as determinative or as phonogram ḥp. This graphical change did not lead to semantic changes but aroused some ambiguity in the use of the word by the Egyptian themselves and in its understanding by modern scholars. Actually, the few examples in which ḥpt seems to mean "oar" (i.e. something like "the fast one") are rare and scattered through the Middle and New Kingdoms. Some of them, dating back to the Late New Kingdom, are of obscure meaning and their interpretation is still uncertain.

It appears that the basic meaning of ḥpt, often written as a plural ḥpwt and with various spellings, remained unchanged until the Greco-Roman era. We propose in conclusion to gather the eight entries allocated by the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache to a noun ḥpt under one single entry, with the general meaning "course, travel, journey". Secondary meanings like "oar" are definitely to be quoted as marginal and mostly doubtful ones.