A cartouche is an oval on a monument and in a papyrus on which the hieroglyphic characters for the names of Egyptian kings are inscribed. In architecture, cartouche signifies a tablet, either for ornament or to receive an inscription, so formed as to resemble a sheet of paper or parchment, with the edges and ends rolled. The same term is applied to modillions, or brackets supporting a cornice, and, in heraldry, to the oval escutcheons of an ecclesiastic.