John Heiman, age 13, of White Plains. N.Y., for his question:

WHAT IS A CARTOUCHE?

In architecture, a cartouche is an ornament shaped like a scroll with rolled up ends. Architects also use the term for an inscribed tablet shaped like a partly unrolled scroll.

 In Egyptian archaeology, a cartouche is an oval    frame with the name or symbol of a ruler on it. In heraldry, the term refers to an oval shield used by popes and churchmen of noble descent to display their coats of arms.

The word cartouche also means a map title, drawn in the form of a scroll.

The word cartouche comes from the Italian word cartoccio, meaning a roll of paper. It first referred to the wadded roll of parchment or paper containing the explosive charge of a firearm.

The word cartridge originally came from this same Italian term.