Chapter I
What it means
The ankh is a cross whose upper arm is a loop. In the Egyptian writing system it stood for the word ankh, “life”, and the picture never lost that sense. When a god holds the sign to the nose or lips of a king, as on countless temple walls, the scene shows the gift of the breath of life, which kept the king, and through him the whole land, alive.
Because it meant life, the ankh was also a promise about death. The dead hoped to live again in the next world, and the sign appears on coffins, amulets and offering tables. In purification scenes, water poured over a king is drawn as a stream of little ankhs: life itself washed over him.
Chapter II
Where it comes from
The sign is already found in the earliest Egyptian writing, around 3000 BCE, and was used for more than three thousand years. What object it first pictured is uncertain: a sandal strap, a belt knot and a mirror have all been proposed, and none can be proved.
When Egypt became largely Christian, from the 4th century CE, the Coptic church kept the shape and used it as a cross, the crux ansata, or “cross with a handle”. It can be seen on Coptic textiles and gravestones of late antiquity.
Chapter III
Where you see it today
The ankh is worn as a pendant, an earring or a tattoo by people of many beliefs and none, as a sign of life, of ancient Egypt or of African identity. It appears in films and games about Egypt, in the logos of museums and in the art of the African diaspora. Small modern Kemetic groups use it in their revived worship of the Egyptian gods.