The origin of the Cartouche :
" Cartouche " The word was first applied to
the Cartouche symbol by the French soldiers who were part of the 1798 military
campaign led by Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. The Egyptian name of the Cartouche
shenu is derived from the same verb, "Sheni" (circle) as shen ring.
The Ancient Egyptians believed that the person would live for as long as the
name was spoken.
A person would be destroyed if his
name was obliterated and great efforts were made to protect it. The name of the
hated heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten which would have been surrounded by a
cartouche were hacked out of monuments and deleted from documents to destroy
all memory of this hated king of Egypt.
History of The Cartouche :
The use of the cartouche started
during the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu. Before this period the names of the kings and
gods were written in rectangular frames. The cartouche was known in ancient Egypt as the
shenu and is derived from the Egyptian word 'Sheni' which means to encircle.
Although the cartouche usually
contained the name of the Pharaoh occasionally the name of a god or goddess is
also in a cartouche. The cartouche was
seen as a powerful protective symbol.
The Magical Protection of the Egyptian Cartouche
The survival of the name, or Ren,
was imperative to the Ancient Egyptians as they believed that the person would
live for as long as the name was spoken. A person would be destroyed if his
name was obliterated and great efforts were made to protect it.
The name of the hated heretic
Pharaoh, Akhenaten which would have b been surrounded by a cartouche were
hacked out of monuments and deleted from documents to destroy all memory of
this hated king of Egypt.
The term, "cartouche" is
a relatively modern one coined by the soldiers of Napoleon's expedition in Egypt, who saw
in the sign the likeness of the cartridges, or "cartouche" used in
their own guns. The cartouche, known in ancient Egypt as the shenu, is derived from
the Egyptian verb, Sheni, which means to encircle.
It is very similar to the
shen sign, a more circular form, and in fact the earliest use of the cartouche
in which the king's name was written were circular and identical with that
sign. So in order to understand the cartouche we must know something of the
shen sign.
The circular shen sign, or ring
evokes the concept of eternity through its form, having no beginning or end,
and its solar aspect is symbolized by the sun disk often depicted in the center
of the circle.
It was also a symbol of
protection, and as a hieroglyphic symbol in Egyptian art, it can have the
meanings of both "eternity" and "protection". As a sign of
"eternity", the shen is frequently associated with representations of
Heh, the god of eternity, and often forms the base of the notched palm-branches
symbolizing "years," which is held by this deity. It is also mirrored
in the shape of the ouroboros, the serpent which bites its own tail.
However, the sign is perhaps most
commonly associated with the avian forms of the falcon god Horus and the
various vulture goddesses. These divine birds are frequently depicted holding
the shen in their claws, hovering above the king and guarding him beneath their
outstretched wings.
The shen signs represented with
these avian deities may be regarded as symbols of eternity, and therefore life,
but it is possible that the signs also carry the connotation of protection, and
this double significance would certainly seem to be present in many of the
small decorative items and amulets, and indeed the larger royal objects, which
are adorned with this sign.
While the earliest use of a
cartouche seems to have been identical in form to the shen sign, early in
Egyptian history, the form of the shen ring was lengthened in order to hold the
increased number of hieroglyphs resulting from longer royal names and fuller
orthography.
In this way, the shen continued to
be used as a sign with its own meaning while the cartouche, or shenu, became
the standard holder of the royal name. Occasionally, one may find the name of a
god or goddess in a cartouche. This was especially the case for
Osiris-Onnophris and Isis in the temple
inscriptions of the Greco-Roman Period.
Though Huni, the last king of the
3rd Dynasty, was the first to enclose his throne name in a true cartouche, by
the 5th Dynasty, both the king's prenomen, or throne name (Egyptian nesu-bit),
and his nomen, or birth name (Egyptian sa-re), were written within cartouches.
These two names were without doubt
the most important titles in the development of royal titulary, and the two
cartouche names frequently appear with emblematic use in works of art as well
as in formal inscriptions. However, it should be noted that these were
typically the only two of the the king's full five-part titulary written within
cartouches. For example, the king's so called Horus name was always written
within a serekh.
While one of the connotations of
the cartouche seems to have related to solar symbolism, an apotropaic (a symbol
to ward off evil or bad luck) function related to the protection of the king's
name was also extremely important. This protective function may be alluded to
in the design of cartouche-shaped royal sarcophagi from the 18th Dynasty
onward.
Certainly, it would seem fitting
to place the deceased king within a chest signifying his name and person, but
the sense that protective imagery is involved is heightened by the inscriptions
an representations which were also added to many sarcophagi. Note also that in
the tomb of Tuthmosis III, in the Valley of the Kings,
the entire burial chamber, as well as the sarcophagus, was constructed in the
form of a cartouche.
The cartouche hieroglyph also
appears in many decorative contexts such as the finger rings and decorated
cartouche-shaped boxes. Some of these rings and chests were based on the form
of the twin cartouches which framed both the king's most important names,
though in these examples the cartouches often encircle small representations of
a solar-related deity or the king himself rather than his name.
In many instances, solar disks
with uraei and plumes surmounted cartouches, possibly alluding to the solar
connotations of the device as well as the solar element in the names of kings,
such as Tutankhamun (Nebkheperure) and Ramesses.
We may also find depicted various
personified cartouches, such as the one at Medinet Habu in the temple of Ramesse III,
which shows a cartouche with two arms, holding the hair of two enemies of Egypt.
Surmounting the cartouche is the atef crown.
A partially personified
cartouche may represent the king's role as controller of Egypt's
enemies, and rings in which the names of subject peoples and defeated cities
were inscribed also appear in lists of captives placed on temple walls.
The cartouche proved invaluable to
early scholars such as Jean-Francois Champollion, who were attempting to
decipher the hieroglyphic script, in that it could be presumed to indicate
which groups of signs were the royal names.
Cartouche Definition video
Egyptian Cartouche Images
