Note 122 — Chapter III · THE WEAPONS OF THE AGE OF WOOD: THE BOOMERANG AND THE SWORD OF WOOD; OF STONE, AND OF WOOD AND STONE COMBINED.

This meaningless word (cartuccia, a scrap of paper) was applied by Champollion to the elliptical oval containing a group of hieroglyphics. It is simply an Egyptian shield (Wilkinson, loc. cit. i. chap. 5), and the horizontal line below shows the ground upon which it rested. The old Nile-dwellers, like the classics of Europe and the modern Chinese, use the shield for their characteristics, their heraldic badges, &c. The same was the case with our formal heraldry, which originated about the time of the Crusades, personal symbolism being its base. As Mr. Hardwick shows, the horse, raven, and dragon were old familiar badges; many of our sheep-marks are identical with ‘ordinaries,’ and the tribes of Australia used signs to serve as kobongs, or crests. Thus, too, in fortification the shield became the crenelle and the battlement, and it served to ‘iron-clad’ the war-galleys of the piratical Norsemen.