Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs jΚΏr.t (iaret)

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In short, yes that is one correct way to write the word for Uraeus. - when iart has the cobra determinative hieroglyph associated with it (as you have shown) it means Uraeus.

However, if written with other determinatives, it can have other meanings. For example, if it is associated with the determinative symbol for a building it can mean "house", or "abode" (of a deity usually)

iart

Now, it is correct that the hieroglyph iart is related to the hieroglyph iar "to ascend", however, the latter is written with a different determinative:

iar1

When used to refer to the actual act of ascending, an additional determinative in the form of a pair of legs is often appended:

iar2

Wikipedia can be OK for looking up hieroglyphs, but it is limited by its very nature. There are some good Egyptian dictionaries available online. A concise dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Faulkner is probably among the best (but I'm not sure how legit the online copies are!).

A good (free) dictionary of Middle Egyptian by Paul Dickson has been made available on the Pyramid Texts Online website.

To answer the update, The Uraeus is actually a symbol representing the Ancient Egyptian goddess Wadjet (one of the earliest Egyptian deities, and often described as the 'protector' of Lower Egypt), who often was depicted as a cobra. The name therefore has the feminine -t ending. In this case, there is no masculine ending.

After the unification of Egypt, the Uraeus of Wadjet appeared alongside the vulture of Nekhbet (representing Upper Egypt) on the royal headdress to symbolise the unified kingdom.

As an aside, most people are familiar with the Egyptian god Amun, whose name imn means 'the hidden [male] one'. However, many do not realise that his origins lay in the Ogdoad of Hermopolis.

The gods of the Ogdoad were paired, and Amun was paired with the goddess Amunet, imn-t (note the feminine ending) whose name means 'the hidden [female] one'. In that example there are male and female versions of the name, distinguished by the -t for the feminine name.

The other male-female god-goddess pairs in the Ogdoad were:

  • Nu / Nu-t
  • Hehu / Hehu-t
  • Kekui / Kekui-t

You may be beginning to see a pattern! However, this pairing doesn't occur elsewhere, so if there is no female equivalent of the god you would not expect to find a version of the name ending in -t. Similarly (as in the case of the Uraeus), if there is no male equivalent, then we would expect to find only the version of the name ending in -t.

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