Egyptian Terms Glossary > Cartouche
Cartouche is the word for the oblong or oval shape enclosing the names of pharaohs and gods in Egyptian hieroglyphs. One short edge of the oblong is attached to the center of a bar that may be vertical (and to the left) or horizontal (and below), depending on whether the cartouche is on its side or upright. You may see a solar symbol, a beetle, feathers, birds or other symbols in the cartouche. [See Cleopatra's Needle for the interpretation of one cartouche.]
Cartouches helped people working on deciphering the Rosetta Stone to figure out the language of the hieroglyphs because cartouches on the Rosetta Stone seemed to mark certain symbols as more important than others. The symbols enclosed by the cartouches turned out to be the proper names of important figures -- pharaohs and gods.
