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What is a cartouche, and why kings put their names in one
6 October 2026
A cartouche is the oval ring the Egyptians drew around a royal name. It pictures a loop of rope tied at one end, and whatever is written inside is the name of a king, a queen or, rarely, a god.
On a wall full of hieroglyphs, the cartouches are where the kings are. Find one and you know who built the wall, or who it honours.
A loop of rope
The cartouche is a stretched version of the shen ring, a circle of rope that stood for eternity and protection. The Egyptian word for it was šnw (shenu), from a verb meaning 'to encircle'. Egyptologists often read the oval as the king ruling everything the sun goes round; that is an interpretation, though a widely shared one.
The French name means cartridge. The story goes that the French who came with Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798 thought the ovals looked like the paper cartridges of their guns.
From serekh to cartouche
The first kings wrote their names in a serekh: a rectangle drawn as a palace front with the Horus falcon on top. Narmer's name stands in one.
The cartouche came later. A few examples are linked to the last kings of the 3rd Dynasty, but Sneferu, around 2600 BC, is the first king known to write his name inside one regularly: the folded cloth, the heart and windpipe, the mouth and the quail chick, snfrw. Kings kept a Horus name in a serekh long after the cartouche arrived.
Two names in two rings
By the Middle Kingdom a king had five names, each with its own title.
The throne name follows the title nswt-bjtj, 'king of Upper and Lower Egypt', written with the sedge (M23) and the bee (L2). The birth name follows sꜣ-rꜥ, 'son of Ra', the pintail duck (G39) and the sun (N5).
Tutankhamun shows both. His throne name, Nebkheperure, 'lord of forms is Ra', is the sun, the scarab, three plural strokes and the basket. His birth name, Tutankhamun, 'living image of Amun', also packs a title into the same ring: ruler of Upper Egyptian Heliopolis.
- Horus name, written in a serekh
- Two Ladies name, under the vulture and cobra goddesses
- Golden Horus name
- Throne name, taken at the coronation, in a cartouche
- Birth name, given as a prince, in a cartouche
Who else had one
Queens and some princesses wrote their names in cartouches too, among them Ahmose-Nefertari, Tiye, Nefertiti and Nefertari. Under Akhenaten even the sun disc, the Aten, had its names written in cartouches, like a king's.
Officials and architects did not, however famous. Imhotep, credited with Djoser's Step Pyramid, and Senenmut, Hatshepsut's steward, wrote their names plain.
Names cut out of the stone
Because a cartouche named one person, it could also unname them. Late in the reign of Thutmose III, some twenty years after Hatshepsut's death, many of her cartouches and figures were chiselled away. After the Amarna period, Akhenaten's names were hacked out and his city abandoned.
Leaving a ring out did the same work. The king list in Seti I's temple at Abydos skips Hatshepsut, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, so the official line of kings runs straight past them.
Reading a cartouche
Read the signs inside in the same direction as the text around it, toward the faces. A god's name usually jumps to the front out of respect: the sun disc of Ra tops Tutankhamun's throne name and is read last.
The cartouche is also a sign in its own right, V10 in Gardiner's list. Drawn small after a word, it serves as a determinative for 'name'.
The ring that opened the script
Cartouches gave decipherment its first foothold. Jean-Jacques Barthélemy suggested in 1762 that the rings held royal names. Around 1819 Thomas Young showed that the cartouche on the Rosetta Stone spelled Ptolemy, the king named in the Greek text, and William Bankes spotted Cleopatra's name on an obelisk from Philae. Jean-François Champollion compared the two cartouches sign by sign: the stool for p, the lion for l and the quail chick for o turn up in both. His letter to Bon-Joseph Dacier in 1822 set out the first sure sound values.
Questions
Could anyone have a cartouche in ancient Egypt?
No. It belonged to kings, queens and some royal children. Today cartouche pendants with modern names are sold all over Egypt.
Where can I see cartouches in Egypt?
In almost every temple. The Gallery of the Lists in Seti I's temple at Abydos holds the cartouches of 76 earlier kings, and Karnak and Luxor Temple carry them on columns, walls and obelisks.
Why do some cartouches stand upright and others lie flat?
They follow the text. In a column the cartouche stands upright on its tied end; in a line of text it lies on its side, with the tie where the name ends.
People in this article
- Sneferu c. 2613–2589 BC
- Tutankhamun c. 1332–1323 BC
- Narmer c. 3000 BC
- Ahmose-Nefertari Queen, wife of Ahmose I, c. 1550–1505 BC
- Tiye Queen, wife of Amenhotep III, c. 1390–1352 BC
- Nefertiti Queen, wife of Akhenaten, c. 1352–1336 BC
- Nefertari Queen, wife of Ramesses II, c. 1279–1255 BC
- Akhenaten c. 1352–1336 BC
- Imhotep Architect of Djoser, c. 2667–2648 BC
- Senenmut Hatshepsut's steward and architect, c. 1473–1458 BC
- Djoser c. 2667–2648 BC
- Hatshepsut c. 1473–1458 BC
- Ptolemy V c. 205–180 BC
- Cleopatra VII c. 51–30 BC
- Seti I c. 1294–1279 BC
- Thutmose III c. 1479–1425 BC
Where to see it
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone carries the same decree in three scripts: hieroglyphs at the top, Demotic in the middle and Greek at the bottom. Its cartouches of Ptolemy V let scholars match Greek letters to Egyptian signs.
SitePhilae Temple
Philae, the island Temple of Isis near Aswan, is where hieroglyphic writing ended: its last dated inscription was carved here in AD 394. Its walls also helped Champollion decipher the script.
MonumentTemple of Seti I at Abydos
Seti I's temple at Abydos holds the Abydos King List and some of the most refined hieroglyphs ever carved. It is the best place in Egypt to compare a king's fine raised relief with his son's quicker sunk relief.
SiteKarnak Temple
Karnak has more royal hieroglyphs in one place than anywhere else in Egypt: battle texts, obelisks, chapels and the cartouches of dozens of pharaohs. It was the great temple of the god Amun, built and rebuilt for about 2,000 years.
SiteLuxor Temple
Luxor Temple shows how one temple collected the names of its builders: Amenhotep III's cartouches in the sun court, Tutankhamun's festival reliefs, Ramesses II's pylon and obelisk, and Alexander the Great written as a pharaoh.
MonumentStep Pyramid of Djoser
The writing at the Step Pyramid is sparse but early. Here the king's own name, the Horus Netjerikhet, is carved inside a serekh on reliefs of his jubilee race, around 2650 BC; the name Djoser comes from much later visitors.
Sources
More to read
- How to write your name in hieroglyphs Write your name in hieroglyphs by sound: which alphabet sign stands for each letter, a worked example, and why it is a modern convention.
- How to read hieroglyphs How to read hieroglyphs: find the way the signs face, sound out the alphabet signs, spot the silent ones. A king's name read sign by sign.
- Which way do you read hieroglyphs? Which way do you read hieroglyphs? Toward the faces: birds, snakes and people look at the start of the line. Rows, columns and the odd exceptions.