- Cartouche
In
Egyptian hieroglyph s, a cartouche is an oblong enclosure with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name, coming into use during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under PharaohSneferu . The Ancient Egyptian word for it was "shenu", and it was essentially an expandedshen ring . In Demotic, the cartouche was reduced to a pair of parentheses and a vertical line.Of the five royal titularies it was the throne name, also referred to as prenomen, and the "Son of Re" titulary, the so-called nomen, i.e. the name given at birth, which were enclosed by a cartouche. [Allen, James Peter, "Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs", Cambridge University Press 2000, p.65]
At times amulets were given the form of a cartouche displaying the name of a king and placed in tombs. Such items are often important to archaeologists for dating the tomb and its contents. [cf. Thomas Eric Peet, William Leonard Stevenson Loat, "The Cemeteries of Abydos. Part 3. 1912-1913", Adamant Media Corporation, ISBN 1402157150, p.23] There were periods in Egyptian history when people refrained from inscribing these amulets with a name, for fear they might fall into somebody's hands conferring power over the bearer of the name. [Alfred Wiedemann, "Religion of the Ancient Egyptians", Adamant Media Corporation 2001, ISBN 1402193661, pp.293-295]
Etymology
It is said that the label "cartouche" was first applied by soldiers who fancied that the symbol they saw so frequently repeated on the pharaonic ruins they encountered resembled a muzzle-loading firearm's paper powder cartridge ( _fr. "cartouche" in French). [White, Jon Manchip, "Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt", Courier Dover 2002, p.175]
References
External links
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20070504092301/http://personalwebs.myriad.net/steveb/egypt/kings.html List of all the Egyptian Cartouches]
* [http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/record.aspx?id=2055 Cartouche-inscribed Object.]Cosmetic palette , Egypt, burial V21, Abydos. (Click on picture.)
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