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The Royal Titulary
From the Old Kingdom onward, each king adopted a
royal titulary that included five names. Certain aspects of the
titulary emphasized features common to all rulers, such as the fact
that all kings were protected by the goddesses of predynastic Egypt
known as the “Two Ladies” and that each ruler was the incarnation of
the god Horus. Other parts of the titulary underlined the particular
strengths and qualities of each ruler. Two names were each written
within a “cartouche.” This appears in hieroglyphic texts as an oval
loop formed by a double thickness of rope with the ends tied
together at one end of the oval. Originally, the loop of the
cartouche was depicted as a circle, but because most names written
within the cartouche were quite long the circle was stretched out to
form an oval.
The Egyptian word for a cartouche, shenew, was derived from the verb sheni, meaning “to encircle.” By enclosing the royal name the shenew symbolized the role of the king as all powerful ruler of everything that the sun encircled. The word cartouche was originally used by the French to translate the concept of a tablet of stone, wood, or metal containing a royal name, but it has now become a generally accepted Egyptological term. When Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion realized that each royal name in hieroglyphic texts was inscribed within a cartouche, it enabled them to compare the Greek and Egyptian names for the rulers on the Rosetta Stone and achieve a breakthrough in deciphering hieroglyphs. The five names of the titulary are as follows: The Horus Name Often written within a rectangular frame surmounted by the falcon god Horus, this probably represented the king’s palace. Horus was the first divine patron of royalty, and this name represented the king as the deity’s earthly incarnation. The Nebty Name Nebty was the Egyptian word for the “Two Ladies.” This name expressed the king’s special relationship with Nekhbet (vulture goddess of Upper Egypt) and Edjo (cobra goddess of Lower Egypt). Once the supreme divine patrons of the two predynastic kingdoms (c.3400–3100 BC) with capitals at Hieraconpolis and Pe, the Two Ladies continued to protect the king of Egypt after unification in c.3100 BC and were, therefore, included in the titulary.
The Golden Horus Name The significance of
this name remains uncertain. Although it may express Horus’s victory
over Seth in the Myth of Osiris, another interpretation claims that
it symbolizes Horus and Seth as reconciled enemies and lords of
Egypt.
The Prenomen Each king adopted the prenomen as a religious name on his accession to the throne. From Dynasty 5 onward the prenomen and nomen were both written inside cartouches. The prenomen was always immediately preceded (in front of the cartouche) by the title nesew-bit, meaning “he who belongs to the sedge and the bee.” The sedge represented Upper Egypt and the bee was the symbol of Lower Egypt, so the title meant “King of Upper and Lower Egypt.” The prenomen usually incorporated the name of the sun god Re, the patron of royalty in the Old Kingdom (e.g., User-maet-Re). The Nomen Enclosed within its own cartouche, the nomen was usually the king’s name before his accession, and therefore several kings within a family often have the same nomen (e.g., Tuthmosis, Amenhotep). The title “son of Re” stood immediately in front of this cartouche. The full titulary was only used in formal inscriptions; otherwise, only the prenomen, sometimes accompanied by the nomen, was used to identify a king. Today, rather than literal translation of the royal names (e.g., “Thoth-is-born”), the prenomen and nomen are usually left in their Egyptian forms (e.g., Tuthmosis). Modern books may vary in their transliteration of royal names (e.g., Amenophis or Amenhotep; Sesostris or Senusret). Some authors retain the Grecized form of a name as it occurred in the historical account of Manetho (e.g., Amenophis, Cheops, Sesostris) whereas others prefer to use forms based directly on the hieroglyphs (e.g., Amenhotep, Khufu, Senusret). Because vowels are absent in hieroglyphic texts and our knowledge of the pronunciation of Egyptian is therefore imperfect, modern vocalization of these names also shows some variation. .
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The Royal Titulary
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