Cartouche

A cartouche is a hieroglyphic symbol of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. It is oval with a horizontal line at one end, showing that the text enclosed is a royal name.
It starts to be used at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty under Pharaoh Sneferu. The cartouche is usually vertical with a horizontal line, but it is horizontal if it makes the name fit better, with a vertical line on the left. The Ancient Egyptian word for it was "shenu". In demotic writing, the cartouche was reduced to a pair of brackets and a vertical line.
Of the five royal titles it was the "prenomen", the throne name, and the "Son of Ra" titulary, the so-called "nomen" name given at birth, which were enclosed by a cartouche.
At times amulets were given the form of a cartouche displaying the name of a king and placed in tombs. Such items are often important to archaeologists for dating the tomb and its contents. Cartouches were only worn by pharaohs.