Ancient Egypt Salt Dough Cartouches

 


In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche was an oval with a horizontal line at one end, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name - rather like a name plate! They were found attached to coffins and also on the jewellery of pharaohs.

Salt dough cartouche

You will need:

1 quantity of salt dough
Acrylic paint (gold, red, blue and black)
Varnish (optional)

Instructions:

Roll out a piece of salt dough to about 1/2cm thick. Cut out an oval. Roll out a long sausage shape. Stick the sausage around the edge of the oval, twisting it slightly as you go so it looks like rope. Press the ends together.

Carefully transfer it to a baking sheet and bake at 160˚F (70˚C) for about 2 hours.

Salt dough cartouches ready for oven
Our salt dough cartouches ready for the oven!

When it is cooled, paint the background and rope.

When the background is completely dry, paint on hieroglyphs to spell your name. Leave to dry. To finish paint on a coat of varnish (optional)


 

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