Nico Pollone has contributed to the JSesh library the very interesting and complex stela Louvre C65, which contains lines of cryptographic texts.

This stela was studied mainly by Etienne Drioton in RdE 1¹, and its sign list is included in Roberson's Lexicon² .

You can find the description of this stela on the Louvre website.

Cryptography makes transcription a bit more complex, because we can't really rely on signs values. In a normal text, if a bird sign is not readily recongnisable, one might infer its identity from its value. But in New Kingdom cryptographic texts, one of the mechanism used is to substitute signs on the basis of their generic shape or family. The G39 duck can be used instead of most other birds in the Amduat cryptography for instance. In C65, any circular sign (ra, zp, ra, X6, N10...) can be used for any othe circular sign. It might be difficult to identify which sign is actually used.

Here is a list of the various peculiarities of the text:

W17D (W17D)

This shape of W17 (W17) is quite typical of XVIIIth dynasty texts. We could have used W17 without losing much information;

X6 (X6) or N10 (N10) ???

we find multiple occurrences of a circular sign with inner drawings. I'm not fully sure if we should understand them as X6 or N10. In any case, they stand for any cicular sign, along multiple ra signs. The interested reader might look at the relatively high resolution picture on the Louvre website.

R10B (R10B) ?

(l. 1) The sign used for ẖr.t-nṯr represents T28 (T28) and R8 (R8 ) on a sledge. It's not in the Manuel de Codage. Eight variants of (R10) are available. The closest ones are R10B (R10B (R10B)) which adds a half N26/full N29 (N29) sign, and R10H (R10h), which adds a feather and sticks the T28 and R8 together. I should either use a standard R10 or add the sign. But I'm tempted to select R10B nonetheless as it's reasonnably close.

H8 (H8)

(l. 6) the first sign of line 6 is probably H8. It was encoded as H34 (H34), which has the same cryptographic value, ꞽmꞽ/ꞽmn.

O36B (O36B) ; N55A (N55A)

the text uses a wavy oval enclosure to write the root ꞽmn or the word ꞽmꞽ. The exact identity of the sign is not clear, and it would probably deserve a code on its own.

D382 (D382)

I have found the code D382 for a combination of a and M12. The actual sign in C65 is a bit different (the hand holds the basis of the stem of M12, not its middle), but it's logically close enough. I'm quite glad to propose a reading which is I think better than the one proposed by Drioton, and listed by Roberson (ḫꜣꜥ): I think the sign can be read as mḫꜣ - actually hardly a cryptographic reading (FCD, 115).

K3 (K3)

there are a number of fish-signs, with the reading s. Roberson lists this value for K2, K3 and K5. We would need to identify the precise kind of fish represented, using the fins as criteria.

Htp (R4)

the stela has a cryptographic writing of ḥtp-dꞽ-nsw, Htp:a-S1. In this spelling, the ḥtp sign is an offering table with three loaves and a beer jug. There is no such sign in the MdC (even if there is a wealth of R4 variants). I have chosen to use the standard code, as the others would be misleading. It might deserve a code of its own.

A26 holding D53

(l. 8). The words m-bꜣk "in front of" are written with man presenting a D53 sign. The D53 is quite small, but recognisable. I have currently used the group editor to simulate the group.

ms

(l. 9) the end of the cryptographic text is quite clear, as it repeats the name of the deceased and his family, available as clear text elsewhere on the stela. In the end of the line, ms is written with a graphical variant of F31 (F31), which looks like a branch with leaves. It's peculiar enough and definitly deserves its own code.