An Ankh

An ankh

I received my ankh from Dr. Baba Buntu as a gift and it has since then acted as a piece of information to so many that ask about it. I will be walking down the street and a random stranger will come to me praising the beauty of the cross that I wear and I will not let the moment pass without explaining what I wear on my neck not being a cross, it rather is an ankh of life. 

The ankh is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol that was most commonly used in writing and in Egyptian art to represent the word for "life" and, by extension, as a symbol of life itself.

                                                                      An Ankh

The ankh has a cross shape but with an oval loop in place of an upper bar. The oval loop of an ankh represents the woman or the feminine sex. Without the feminine sex, it is not possible for life to reproduce. The bar separating the oval loop with the lower bar represents a child. A child is a product of the feminine and masculine sex or say the man and woman. It is this child that carries life forward. There is the lower vertical bar, this bar represents the masculine sex or the man. 

There are hypotheses that propose that the ankh was used in writing as a triliteral sign, representing a sequence of three consonants, Ꜥ-n-ḫ. This sequence was found in several Egyptian words, including the words meaning "mirror", "floral bouquet", and "life". In art the symbol often appeared as a physical object representing either life or substances such as air or water that are related to it. While people much  more recently wear it as a design for jewelry and tattoos, the ankh is more symbolic than just that. It is not just a piece of art it is a representation for how life is carried forward to the next generation. 

It was especially commonly held in the hands of ancient Egyptian deities, or being given by them to the pharaoh, to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.

The writer in his Ankh at a hotel in Kenya

The ankh was one of the most common decorative motifs in ancient Egypt and was also used decoratively by neighboring cultures. Coptic Christians adapted it into the crux ansata, a shape with a circular rather than oval loop, and used it as a variant of the Christian cross. Since the late 20th century, in the Western world, the ankh has again come to be used decoratively, as a symbol of African cultural identity, Neopagan belief systems, and the goth subculture.

 The ankh is one of the most widely recognized symbol of African origin in the Western world, and it is sometimes used by people especially those of African descent around the world as a symbol of African cultural identity. The ankh also symbolizes Kemetism. Kemetism is a group of religious movements based on the religion of ancient Egypt and it is also sometimes referred to as Neterism. 

Is it the ankh that has a cross shape but with an oval loop in place of an upper bar or it is the cross that has ankh shape with a circular rather than oval loop ??