Cartonnage

Material consisting of layers of linen or papvrus stiffened with (jf..sso (plaster) and often decorated with paint or gilding. It was most commonly used for making mummv .MASKS, mummy cases, anthropoid coffins and other funerarv items. The earliest cartonnage mummy masks date to the First Intermediate Period, although a few' surviving examples of Old Kingdom mummies have thin layers of

Figure of a cat sacred to the goddess Bastet, wearing protective vtd]&t-eye amulet. Late Period, after 600 BC, bronze with gold rings, h. 38 cm. (ea64391)

Mummy, like his name, to be physically surrounded by the cartouche.

W. Barta, ‘Der Kbnigsring als Symbol zyklischer Widerkehr’, ZAS 98 (1970), 5-16.

P. Kapi. onv, ‘Kbnigsring’, Lexikon der Agyptologie lii, ed. W. Helck, E. Otto and W. Westendorf (Wiesbaden, 1980), 610-26.

R. n. Wilkinson', Reading Egyptian art (London, 1992), 194-5.

Cat

Important both as a domestic pet and as a symbol of deities such as BA. STLT and ra (the ‘great cat of Heliopolis’). There were two indigenous feline species in ancient Egypt: the jungle cat {Felis chans) and the African wild cat

Plaster over the linen wrappings covering the face, perhaps representing an earlier stage in the development of the material.

J. H. T. WLOR, ‘The development of cartonnage cases’, Mutmnies and magic, ed. S. D’Auria, P. Lacovara and C. Roehrig (Boston, 1988), 166-8. —, Egj’ptian coffins (Princes Risborough, 1989), 23-4,47-53.

Cartouche (Egyptian shenu)

Elliptical outline representing a length of knotted rope with which certain elements of the Egyptian rov. m. titulary were surrounded. The French word cartouche, meaning ‘gun cartridge’, was originally given to the royal frame by Napoleon’s soldiers and savants,

Detail of the fapade of the 'great temple ’ at Abu Simbel, consisting of a cartouche containing the prenonien ofRatneses it (User-Maat-Ra). 19th Dynasty, 1279-1213 BC. (j. sruir)

Because of its cartridge-like shape. From the 4th Dynasty (2613-2494 Bt:) onwards the line was drawn around the king’s ‘throne name’ (prenomen or nesw-hil) and ‘birth name’ (nomen or sa Ra). It proved invaluable to early scholars such as Jean-Fram;:ois Champollion who were attempting to decipher the hieroglyphic script, in that it was presumed to indicate w'hich groups of signs were the royal names.

The cartouche was essentially an elongated form of the shi:n hieroglyph, and both signs signified the concept of ‘encircling protection’ denoted by a coil of rope folded and tied at the end. The physical extension of the original shen sign into a cartouche was evidently neccs. sitat-ed by the increasing length of royal names. The symbolic protection afforded by a cartouche, which mav have been a diagram of the universe being encircled by the sun, is graphically illustrated by the choice of this sign for the shape of some 18th-and 19th-Dynasty sarcophagi, such as that of Merenptah (1213-1203 uc;). Some of the early 18th-Dynasty burial chambers in the Valley of the Kings, as in the tomb of i hl r-.MOSE III (1479-1425 BC) (kv34), were also car-touche-shaped, thus allowing the king’s {Felis silvestris libyca), the former being found only in Egypt and southeastern Asia. The earliest Egyptian remains of a cat were found in a tomb at the Prcdynastic site of Mostageddu, near modern Asyut, suggesting that the Egyptians were already keeping cats as pets in the late fourth millennium bc.

The Egyptian word for ‘cat’ was the onomatopoeic term min which, although not mentioned in the pvra. mid texts, found its way into various personal names from the Old Kingdom onward. s, including the 22nd-Dynasty pharaoh known as Pamiu or Pimay, literally ‘the tomcat’ (773-767 bc). The earliest Egyptian depiction of the cat took the form of three hieroglyphic symbols, each representing seated cats. These formed part of the phrase ‘Lord of the City of Cats’ inscribed on a stone block from EL-LLSirr, which may date as earlv as the reign of PF. PY n (2278-2184 bc). From the 12th Dynasty onw'ards, cats were increasingly depicted in the painted decoration of private tombs, cither participating in the scenes of hunting and fowling in the marshes or seated beneath the chair of the ow ner.

It was in the funerary texts of the New Kingdom that the cat achieved full apotheosis: in the Amduat (see funerary text. s) it is portrayed as a demon decapitating bound c. m*-TiVES and in the Litany of Ra it appears to bc a personification of the sun-god himself, battling with the evil serpent-god apopiiis. As a result of its connection w'ith the sun-god, the cat was depicted on a number of Ramessidc stelae found in the Theban region. From the Late Period onwards, large numbers of sacred cats were mummified and deposited in underground galleries at such sites as Bubastis ('J ELL basta) and sfico. s artemidos (see also sacri:i.) ANI. MA1.S), and numerous bronze votive statuettes have also survived, including the ‘Gayer-Anderson cat’ in the collection of the British Museum.

L. Stork, ‘Karze’, Le. xikon der Agyptologie ill, ed. W. Helc:k, E. Otto and W. Westendorf (Wiesbaden, 1980), 367-70.

P, L. Armitage and j. Clu i ton-brock,

‘A radiological and histological investigation into the mummification of cats from ancient Egypt', Journal of Archaeological Science 8 (1981),

185-96.

J. Malek, The cat in ancient Egypt (London,

1993).