The “God’s Palace”

A Shrine Sign for šps, “August”

Abstract

This article examines a striking graphic variation in the writing of šps (“august, noble”)—where the conventional seated-man-of-rank sign (A50) is replaced by the shrine façade sign (O21)—in the Wadi Hammamat inscription of the Director of Works Mery, dated to the reign of Amenemhat III. This substitution reflects a deliberate semantic strategy grounded in conceptual association, one of the key mechanisms underlying enigmatic writing. By means of this graphic choice, the inscription reconceptualizes the mountain as a sacralized architectural space, evoking the quarries themselves as the god’s true dwelling place.