The "gallows" characters

[Anton]

OK, Wladimir kindly provided me with some figures and comments out of band (don't remember if they were already posted in the "Artefacts" thread), and the matter stands so far as follows:

Simple gallows:

p - yes
f - yes
t - yes
k - no

Benched gallows featuring...

p - yes
f - no
t - yes
k - no

I also need to add that I recognize the type of gallows (simple vs benched)  for the coverage by the leading (not the trailing) leg.

This given, the following trail of reasoning may be pursued.

Gallows (and gallows-containing composites such as EVA &130; ) are the only characters containing a vertical that do raise above the line. Other characters containing a vertical do not raise above the line. For example, q does not. Neither does z (although its vertical is shortened and probably is not the same as the vertical in gallows - indeed, otherwise it would not be possible to distinguish it from k). Neither does EVA &206; (see e.g. f68r1, line 3).

So the question is there: why do the gallows need to raise above the line? For the benched gallows the answer is evident: because otherwise there would have been no place for the loops.

But what about simple gallows? As I wrote elsewhere (maybe in this very thread above), the reasonable answer is that they raise above the line so as to enable the gallows coverage. If they did not, the gallows coverage would not have been possible.

But of the four simple gallows one - namely, the k character, - does not exhibit gallows coverage. So why would it need to raise above the line? The answer that I can think of is that when putting down the text it is not known in advance which gallows is to be used. The vertical is first put down, and only then - when the nearby characters are put down, the gallows is completed to be one of the particular types.

What do you think?