The golden pharaonic cartouche
A cartouche is a certain figure that appears in the Form of Writing which Egyptians used and in the Egyptian Language. As for the geometric shape or cartouche, it is a shape like a crown or arches that encloses and stands out what is found within, Know more about Pharaonic cartouches below.
A pharaonic cartouche is an oval shape with a line at one end of the oval. The cartouche has a royal name inside and was used to increase the importance of the text within the oval geometric shape. The cartouche was first used from the Third Egyptian Dynasty during the reign of King Djoser, known as the Old Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt, but it could be commonly used then.
At the beginning of the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty during the reign of King Sneferu, the Pharaonic cartouche began to be commonly used. The writing inside the cartouche is vertical and in a horizontal line, which was the appropriate form for writing royal names. In ancient times, the cartouche was called “shenu”. The ancient cartouche was an enlarged ring, and in the Demotic text the cartouche was reduced to a pair of brackets and a vertical line.
The cartridges were just a shape with the king's name on it and were placed in tombs, but sometimes kings wore them in the belief that they would protect them from evil spirits, according to the religion of the ancient Egyptians. After the spread of the cartridge, it became a symbol of luck and protection from any evil. The word “cartouche” was first used by French soldiers when they saw it repeated on Egyptian pharaonic monuments at archaeological sites in Egypt.
The nickname was given by the French soldiers because they thought the shape resembled that of powdered firearms. The word shin in the ancient Egyptian language meant circle or ring, so the word “shinna” is now used to describe a person of status in society.