Crook and flail
The shepherd’s crook and the flail, emblems of rule that a hymn to Osiris says the god received as prince of gods and men.
Meaning
Petrie gives the crook’s name as heqt, the “crook of the flocks” used by shepherds, and the flail’s as nekhekh, and for both the meaning of rule in Heliopolis. In the hymn to Osiris in Budge’s translation, the god “hath received the crook and the whip, and the dignity of his divine fathers”; Petrie calls the flail a scourge.
Origin and history
Full-sized flails of limestone were found broken up in tombs of the Twelfth Dynasty at Riqqeh, Petrie records.
The king as herdsman
The Global Egyptian Museum describes the crook, the heqa sceptre, as a herdsman’s long staff curved at one end, which became a sign of kingship through the image of the king as herdsman. Even without the flail it is a symbol of power, and high officials hold it too. Both are emblems of gods as well: mainly of Osiris, but also of the moon god Khons, of Anubis and of Harpocrates. Kings hold the crook in their heb sed robes and when shown as Osiris.
What the flail was
The same source calls the flail’s meaning unclear. Tradition makes it a herdsman’s whip, as Budge’s translation does; it has also been explained as a sign of birth, since it looks like the hieroglyph ms, and as a tool for gathering resin, as is still done on Crete and Cyprus. It looks like a fly swat, but has a squarish join above the handle from which three strings of beads hang, and it kept roughly the shape it has on the Narmer Palette throughout Egyptian history. Because it was Osiris’s emblem, it was in the end given to every dead person.
Held crossed on the chest
Tutankhamun’s innermost coffin, of solid gold (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 60671), gives him the shape of Osiris holding the heka sceptre and the flail. A sandstone statue of him (JE 36814), one of the Osiride figures that stood along the avenue from the tenth pylon of Karnak to the precinct of Mut, crosses his arms on his chest to hold the same insignia of Osiris.
Write in hieroglyphs
stringmash.comHieroglyphics translatorSpell a name in Egyptian hieroglyphs, letter by letter, and put it in a cartouche.Read next
- Next in Egyptian hieroglyphicsUraeusThe cobra worn on the brow of Egyptian kings, a sign of royal power; in Egyptian myth, serpent goddesses took its form.
- In Egyptian gods and their symbolsOsirisOsiris’s symbols are the crook and flail in his hands and the atef, the tall white crown with a plume on each side. He is the Egyptian king of the dead, drawn as a mummy with only his hands and face free, sometimes with green skin, and the djed pillar was read as his backbone.
See also
Eye of Horus, Scarab, Djed pillar, Was sceptre, Shen ring, Cartouche.
Sources
- Amulets, illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College, London, W. M. Flinders Petrie, 1914, Constable and Company, London (Internet Archive), Nos. 52, 53
- Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life, E. A. Wallis Budge, 1899, Project Gutenberg, Hymn to Osiris
- Crook, Global Egyptian Museum glossary, The Global Egyptian Museum, Glossary: Crook
- Flagellum, Global Egyptian Museum glossary, The Global Egyptian Museum, Glossary: Flagellum
- The Innermost Coffin of Tutankhamun, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 60671, The Global Egyptian Museum, Description
- Statue of Tutankhamun Holding the Insignia of Osiris, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 36814, The Global Egyptian Museum, Description
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from crosses or curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 3, 2026. How we research
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