what do ancient egyptian cartouches represent
While the cartouche is usually vertical with a horizontal line, if it makes the name fit better it can be horizontal, with a vertical line at the end (in the direction of reading). The Ancient Egyptian word for it was shenu, and it was essentially an expanded shen ring. In Demotic, the cartouche was reduced to a pair of brackets and a vertical line. Of the five royal titularies 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.