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Ankh


The ankh (/ˈæŋk/ or /ˈɑːŋk/; Egyptian ˁnḫ), also known as crux ansata (the Latin for "cross with a handle") is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic ideograph with the meaning "life".

The Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. The ankh appears in hand or in proximity of almost every deity in the Egyptian pantheon (including Pharaohs).

The ankh symbol was so prevalent that it has been found in digs as far as Mesopotamia and Persia, and even on the seal of the biblical king Hezekiah.

The symbol became popular in New Age mysticism in the 1960s.

Unicode has two characters encoding the symbol, U+2625 ☥ in the Miscellaneous Symbols block and U+132F9 ...
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