The magical and mysterious world of Ancient Egypt still attracts people from all over the planet. Many of his everyday attributes are a mystery to most today.
In this article we will try to slightly raise the veil of secrecy. You will learn what the Egyptian cartouche is. Is it an amulet, a punctuation mark, or something else?
How to decipher the hieroglyphs?
This strange and unusual letter captures at a glance. "Sacred signs", as the ancient Greeks called them, or hieroglyphs were carved on stone blocks of pyramids, stella, clay tablets, written on papyrus and parchment. But none of the neighboring nations set out to penetrate their secret.
Therefore, the process of deciphering this letter dragged on for many years. The breakthrough occurred only by chance. The French explorer François Chompollon was able to decrypt a significant part of the characters using the Rosetta stone. It had two identical texts. One in ancient Greek, the second in Egyptian.
The names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, enclosed in cartouches, were deciphered first.
Thus, the beginning of Egyptology was laid precisely by these hieroglyphs. Photo of the Rosetta inscription you can see below.
Types of hieroglyphic writing
This writing system has developed a very long time. Researchers consider the approximate date the boundary of the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
In the beginning there were simple pictograms, that is, a picture denoted a word. If the sun was painted, then it meant only this light and nothing more.
Later they begin to expand the scope of pictograms. Now the sun can mean not only itself, but also such a word as “day”.
Over time, the letter becomes more complicated. Now hieroglyphs denote letters, syllables, words.
Other writing systems appear. Now there is demotic and hieratic writing, as well as classic sacred hieroglyphs. Photos of the first two fonts are located below.
What is a cartouche? A photo
Since the Egyptian characters were deciphered by the Frenchman, this symbol also received its name from this language. “Cartouche” means “packaging, package”, which, in essence, it reminds.
In fact, as it turned out later, this is a stylized image of the ring of eternity. We will talk about him a little later.
So what did this symbol mean? The Egyptians called him "Shen" - "eternity." A cartouche is a special outline with underlining - a ringing of the text of the royal name. Something similar to the modern way of writing with a capital letter. After all, the hieroglyphs did not have large and small letters, punctuation marks.
The first appearances of this symbol are dated by the reign of the pharaoh Snofru, about 2500 BC.
The first two of the five names of the pharaoh were inscribed in the cartouche, since the remaining three were simply titles. The first word denoted the name given upon ascension to the throne, and the second - received at birth.
As mentioned earlier, in Egypt there were several writing systems, fonts. In cursive (demotic) cartouche, it’s just a pair of brackets and a vertical line.
Shen ring
Initially, this symbol denotes eternity and protection from hostile forces. Later, in the Greco-Roman period, he is associated with Ouroboros, a snake that bites its own tail.
In the middle of the third millennium BC, the pharaohs began to apply this protective magical form to their names. The first two words denoting the throne name and given at birth were known to many.
It used to be that if you know the real name of a person or thing, you will gain power over them. This superstition persisted until the 19th century, when the Grimm brothers wrote the tale "Rumpelstiltskin."
Often the sign "Shenu" connects the ruling pharaoh with Horus, the falcon god. The latter not only protects the king, but also allows him to rule forever as his heir. This is indicated by a palm branch on which there is a stylized cartouche. This is a symbol for the period of government.
Thus, the pharaohs officially asserted their divine authority over Upper and Lower Egypt.
Amulets
Belief in magic, witchcraft, the ability to secretly harm another person gave development to such a direction as the manufacture of amulets and talismans.
At first it was a sign only of the royal family. They were surrounded by the name of the pharaoh and his wife. But later, when the country came under the influence of different conquerors, this symbol passed into the category of consumer. Since that time, the Egyptian cartouche is just a blank for the amulet.
This is an oval tablet made of stone, metal, wood or clay, which contains the name of the person who bought it.
There are several legends about the origin of the cartouche as an amulet.
According to the first one, it is a stylized wool rope with which nomads and Bedouins surround their tents. This prevents small insects, scorpions, snakes and other reptiles from getting inside.
The second version says that this is an ordinary protective magic circle.
The third is the closest to the Egyptian tradition. Here in the cartouche they see a stylized image of the god of the earth Hebe (horizontal line), above which stands the great goddess Nut. It closes and protects everyone from troubles and misfortunes.
In principle, in the mystical tradition of ancient Egypt it was believed that the cartouche contains a piece of the soul of a person whose name is inscribed inside.
Thus, dear readers, today we have learned what the Egyptian cartouche is.