When you wrote Write Your Name, you put it inside an oval. That oval has a name: a cartouche. In real Egyptian writing, only special names got one.
Key idea
A cartouche is an oval loop of rope drawn around a king's or queen's name. When you see one, you know you are looking at a royal name.
Why it works
The loop is a rope tied at one end, like a ring that goes all the way around. Egyptians believed it surrounded and protected the name. French soldiers in Egypt around 1800 thought the oval looked like the paper cartridge for their guns, called a cartouche in French, and the name stuck. A king had several names, and the two most important were written in cartouches.
Worked example: Read Khufu's cartouche
The cartouche holds: a round sign (kh), a quail chick (w), a horned viper (f), a quail chick (w). What name is it?
- Read the sounds in order: kh, w, f, w.
- Between consonants, w is said "u": kh-u-f-u.
Answer: Khufu.
Common mistake
Thinking every word in a loop is a king's name. Cartouches hold only royal names. A long word or a word inside a box is something else.
Kings first wrote their names in cartouches near the start of the pyramid age, about 4,600 years ago.