N23

Meanings

Representing an irrigation canal. In hieroglyphic text, this glyph developed from a variant of N36 () in the 11th Dynasty, which in turn had partly supplanted N22 (), its variants N21 () and N20 (), and Aa12 () in the 8th Dynasty. However, in hieratic, a glyph much like this one was already in use since the Old Kingdom. Ultimately, the glyph N23 remained in use through the 18th Dynasty, when it was largely again supplanted by N21 () as a determinative for land. As part of a determinative for time, this glyph instead developed from Z4B (), which became conflated with the irrigation-canal glyph.