Travel The World Jewelry
Part 1 of 2

Noreen, one of my past party hostesses emailed me recently and asked if I could recommend some gemstones for her husband to buy. He was off to Egypt for a brief work related visit. I could have suggested gemstones like lapis lazuli and turquoise which the Ancient Egyptians favored. But for Egyptian souvenir jewelry, nothing beats the cartouche name pendants. And that's what he brought back!

I have written about cartouches before (see my past post : An Imperfect Egyptian Cartouche), specifically Debbie's (my friend and co-instructor). She too got someone to bring back her name pendant in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Cartouche is French for cartridge because Napoleon's soldiers thought the then mysterious writing surrounded by an oval (see picture on the left) resembled their ammunition. These were later discovered to be the royal names.

Noreen kindly sent me the chart below which shows how the pictorial writing correlates to our alphabet. Just looking at the above three pendants, it's clear even at a glance, the one on the left is Noreen's because of the double E's.

We can't see from the photograph but I'll bet there are deliberate flaws just like Debbie's cartouche - hers had a reversed bail. The reason is the Egyptian artisans believe only God can create perfection.



Related Post

A Ceramic Scarab Necklace - about Egyptian scarabs

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