What is the shen ring?

Eternity and protection. Stretched into an oval it becomes the cartouche that encloses a king’s name.

What the sign shows: A loop of rope with its ends tied off in a straight line.
How Gerald Massey read it in 1907: In his list of the charms of the dead it stands for unbroken continuance.
Where you see it today: Every royal name you see in hieroglyphs sits inside its stretched form, the cartouche.
Where it stands in Massey’s book: Massey names it 2 times across the book. Book X, p. 677: “Hathor’s holy ground in Sinai”.
Signs that look like it: Sun disk, Ankh and Heart. The app’s Symbol Trainer sets them side by side, so the eye learns to tell them apart.
In Massey’s words: “The Shen-ring imaged continuity for ever, in the circle of eternity.” (Gerald Massey, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World (1907), Book II, p. 115)
In the app: Trainer › Symbol Trainer › Shen ring. The app’s Symbol Trainer reads 42 signs this way, each with Massey’s own words and the page they stand on.

Last updated October 25, 2026.

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