Abstract
According to the usual presentation of the data, the Egyptian notion ofachom combines the denomination of a bird of prey with that of a kind of divine image. The problematic link between these two meanings has been partially clarified by an in-depth study of the earliest occurrences, which makes it possible to propose a starting point for the long history of the term achom, being " vigilant " whose various roles relate to this defining quality. A renewed approach to this problem is thus based on attention to the fundamental distinction, sometimes somewhat forgotten in interpretations where semantics is not the main focus, between meaning proper and reference. The same name, with an identical meaning, can thus be used to designate an animal, a superhuman entity or the form given to the latter, and from there possibly see its own meaning extended to a new use as the name of certain divine images. In other words, it is in the space that remains between words and things that the apparent historical gap between a Coptic bird name and the designation of a category of representations is played out, the contours of which we shall try to define by taking as our horizon its particular relationship with the Osirian domain.
Knowledge of ancient Egyptian essential.
