⁂⁂⁂⁂, but the present seems to be the suitable place for a
more extended notice of this feminine word, which is a collective noun,
and never found in any other sense.
The ancient form ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ renders it more than probable that
⁂ is not phonetic in the later form, but that as in ⁂⁂ _kai_,
originally ⁂⁂ (whence the Coptic ⲕⲟⲧ, ⲕⲱⲧⲉ, a circle, a round
vessel, to go round), it is ideographic of _roundness_. This concept is
certainly to be found in the word ⁂⁂⁂, the Coptic ϫⲱϫ, a head
(or rather top of the head), as in the Latin _vertex_, akin to _vortex_,
from the same root as _vertere_. The sign ⁂, which in later texts
often appears as the determinative, has its origin in the cursive form
of ⁂ carelessly written. Instead of ⁂ we also find ⁂, which is
certainly not phonetic but ideographic of _enclosure_, as in the word
⁂⁂⁂⁂ a wall, _paries_, ἕρκος. This word occurs already in
the Pyramid Texts under the form ⁂⁂⁂. See Pepi I, 571, which M.
Maspero renders ‘la Grande _Enceinte_ d’On.’ The evident etymological
relationship to the Coptic ϫⲱϫ has led some scholars to translate the
Egyptian word as signifying _chiefs_, _princes_. But though the lexicons
give _dux_ and _princeps_ as meanings of the Coptic word, these are but
secondary applications of _head_. We have to enquire why ϫⲱϫ means
_head_, or _top of the head_. And the reason is its roundness, as
indicated by the ideographic signs ⁂ or ⁂.
The old Egyptian word ⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂ invariably implies an
association of persons, and this is why in consequence of its etymology
I translate it as ‘Circle of gods.’ It is synonymous (_cf._ chapter 41,
note 8) with ⁂⁂⁂.