Cartouches are an oval or rectangle magical line which was drawn to hold the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics that spelt out the name of great Queen or King. Cartouches have a prominent space in ancient Egyptian jewelry, papyrus documents and Egyptian monument. The survival of the name is very important, because according to ancient Egyptians, a person will live for as long a time as the name was spelt. A person will be destroyed if his name is eliminated and therefore, great efforts were made to protect the name. The name of the hated heretic Akhenaten and Pharaoh which was surrounded by the cartouche were slashed out from the Ancient Egyptian jewelry and erased from the documents to obliterate all the memory of the hated kings of Egypt.

Gold was widely used by the Egyptian craftsman for making ancient Egyptian jewelry and cartouche. They enriched their knowledge by way of implementing gold in different metals and learnt how to use them in weapons too. Cartouche was not a part of Ancient Egyptian jewelry in the first three dynasties. However, the use of the cartouche started in the beginning of the fourth dynasty under King Sneferu.

Prior to this period, the name of the Gods and the kings were written in the rectangular frames. The cartouche was accepted as shenu in ancient Egypt and is derived from the Egyptian word ‘sheni’ which means enclose. Use of cartouche can be found in the tomb of pharaoh Tuthmosis III, in the gorge of kings, the entire sarcophagus, as well as the burial chamber. However, the name which was actually designated to the art work by the ancient Egyptians is still unknown.

The term cartouche was first given by Napoleon’s soliders. The word was first applied by a French soldier who was a part of the military campaign in 1798 under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt. The French soldiers were responsive that the napoleon Bonaparte has given order to transfer the ancient Egyptian jewelry to Paris. The French soldiers saw that the symbols which are appearing in the ancient Egyptian jewelry resembled as bullets or gun cartridges and since French language called the gun cartridge as ‘cartouche’, the same was implemented.

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