Lost Answers Questions

The timer actually has a number of these symbols it can flip to, it is apparent when looking at the tiles before a symbol is flipped to. It is also clear that there was CGI work done to mesh two timers; 1 number and 1 symbol to make it seems as though there was 1 timer. When looking at the tiles when they are reset in slow motion, you can see that while flipping this mesh is taking place, and a normally white tile '5' is pink because it is in transition from the red tiles flipping (on the right) to the white tiles flipping (seconds). Possibly a digital error in editing the show and has no bearing on anything besides the fact they would rather do it digitally then actually construct a countdown timer which includes a mass-amount of ancient egyptian hieroglyphics.

Quite possibly even an illusion to Locke. He was the only one to witness this, and was under pretty intense stress to input the numbers. Could be one of the hallucinations which seem to be the norm any more.

Thanks aerin84 for this; "if those symbols are taken as a group, the most likely meaning is s-dA- meaning to depart in death, or something like that.

If the symbol in between is added in, it could mean something else, since dA has a bunch of meanings on its own."


First symbol is a folded cloth
'S', pronounced as in 'glaSS'.
This symbol can also mean 'she, her (it, its)
Gardiner S29 http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/gardner3.htm

Second Symbol was not flipped to
After review of the video, it is clear this is not able to be determined. There are a number of symbols going by and not flipped to, and when the timer is reset, lock is in the way of the timer until it actually starts flipping.
By searching terms, it can be drawn that this symbol was supposed to be a spiral, which is the Gardiner Z7

Third symbol is a firedrill
Gardiner U29 http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/gardner3.htm

Fourth symbol is a vulture
'A' with an 'ah' sound.
It can also mean 'father'.
Gardiner G1 http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/gardner1.htm

Fifth symbol is 'Z6' hieroglyph
Browsing an older version of http://www.hieroglyphs.net/ I found the last symbol in this chart under 'other symbols'
it's Gardiner Z6 http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/gardner4.htm
http://hieroglyphs.net/000501/images/write/tables/XAa.gif
"Z 6 hieratc variant of A13-14 Determinative DIE, ENEMY. Sometimes similar to F20."