The Ancient Egyptian belief was that the hieroglyphics could come alive, so in
order to avoid the inscriptions in her pyramid to be ineffective/ risk them
losing their power, all animals were written in an unusual way to prevent them
from coming alive and escaping.
Some examples are given in the quotes below:
‘An
interesting observation concerns the treatment of the hieroglyphs. They are
carved as normal signs, but later the legs of the birds were scratched out. In
the Thirteenth Dynasty, hieroglyphs on objects placed in the tomb chamber were
often incomplete. The legs of birds are missing, the ends of snakes are not
depicted, and human figures are avoided. The movement of living creatures was
evidently seen as potentially dangerous for the deceased. The preparation of
Neferuptah’s burial in her father’s pyramid evidently occurred at the time when
these new hieroglyphs were introduced.’
From: Grajezki W.,2014, Tomb
treasures of the Late Middle Kingdom: the archeology of female burials,
university of Pennsylvania press.
‘The
Egyptians’ hieroglyphic writing system was a combination of pictographic and
ideographic symbols along with a few that were alphabetical. Among the symbols
or ‘letters’ were those in the shape of an eagle, chick, owl, crane, lion, dog,
snail, frog, fish, snake, and so on. The Egyptian belief in the inherent magic
in these letters was not obscured by the mists of time. It was clearly expressed,
for example, in the hieroglyphs of the pyramid of Princess Neferuptah. The daughter
of Pharaoh Amenemhet III (who ruled 1842-1797 B.C.), she lay in state in a room
one of whose walls was covered with the customary description of the importance
of the deceased royal person. Archaeologists who first came upon these writings
were surprised to discover that, of the letters forming the testimonial, all
those represented by creatures were mutilated, lacking appropriate limbs,wings
or tails…The Egyptians fear that, when all the people had left the pyramid and
the doors were sealed, the letters would come to life and the fish swim, the
birds fly, the animals run and the text be lost. The text had been too
important to the princess and to posterity for any chance to be taken. They crippled
them all so none would escape and the text would remain forever intact.’
Quote taken from M. Drogin and cited in: Bosmajian H., 2005,
Burning books, McFarlan&Co.
I couldn't find a nice pic of the tomb wall itself for you to see those hieroglyphics (I would love to see them myself!), so in the meantime here is her famous offering table:
photograph courtesy of: Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/24504158@N07/43791703105/">Chris Irie</a> Flickr via <a href="http://compfight.com">Compfight</a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/help/general/#147">cc</a>
