a royal name so important they built it a little oval bodyguard.
means an oval or oblong figure in egyptian hieroglyphs enclosing the name of a king or god to mark it as sacred and powerful.
from from french cartouche meaning cartridge, because napoleon's soldiers thought the shape looked like a rolled charge of gunpowder; the ancient egyptians called it shenu, from a verb meaning to encircle, since a loop of rope drawn around a name was believed to protect it eternally and claim dominion over everything the sun encircled.
rosetta stone cartouches — ptolemy's name in the loop cracked the whole script
tutankhamun's cartouche — found repeated across his tomb treasures, 1922
cleopatra's cartouche — on the philae obelisk, confirmed champollion's alphabet theory
ramesses ii cartouches — carved obsessively across abu simbel to outlast time