A cartouche is an oval or oblong frame, like a stretched-out circle, often used to enclose important names or symbols.

The most famous cartouches appear in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, where they surrounded the names of pharaohs and other royal figures. The Egyptians believed that drawing a protective loop around a pharaoh's name would guard it for eternity. When archaeologists discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799, they noticed cartouches containing the name of Ptolemy V, which helped them finally crack the code of hieroglyphics. By recognizing that the symbols inside cartouches were names, they could begin matching Egyptian symbols to Greek sounds.

You'll also see cartouches in architecture and design, where they serve as decorative oval frames on buildings, monuments, or furniture. Renaissance and Baroque architects loved adding ornate cartouches to their designs, often filling them with coats of arms, dates, or inscriptions. Next time you visit an old building or museum, look for these elegant oval frames: they're usually marking something the creator thought was especially important or worth remembering.