Abydos Cartouche
Summary
The Abydos Cartouche is a list of Stargate addresses. The list was the first source of addresses the SGC used apart from trial and error. The addresses from the Cartouche are still a large part of the database the SGC uses to find places to explore.
History
Thousands of years ago, the Abydos Cartouche was listed on the walls of one of the permanent structures of Abydos, in a separate building from the one which held the Stargate. It is presumed but never stated that Ra had the cartouche made. The SGC has always worked under the presumption that the Goa'uld were aware of many, if not all, of the Stargates listed on the Abydos Cartouche.
The Abydos Cartouche is a chamber where the walls are covered hieroglyphs. About a month after O'Neill and the rest of the original Abydos expedition returned to Earth, Daniel Jackson discovered this chamber while exploring his new homeworld (1.01 "Children of the Gods Part 1"). He noted all they hieroglyphs were in groupings of seven symbols. Intuitively, he realized the Stargate must go to other places than besides between Earth and Abydos.
The Abydonians unburied the Stargate, but Dr. Jackson was unable to dial anywhere using the chevrons listed. Later, when the SGC sent out a recon team to Abydos, Daniel met Capt./Dr. Samantha Carter and they discussed the cartouche. Daniel's musing that perhaps over time the addresses changed caused Sam to realize the addresses would not work because stellar drift of the planets during the millenia had to be taken into account. She used a video camera to record the glyphs on all the walls of the chamber.
Capt. Carter and others at the SGC were able to reprogram the SGC dialing computer to take into account stellar drift. The reprogrammed computer was able to recalculate the addresses of those worlds listed on the cartouche, and Stargate Command now had a working database of locations to which they could travel. At first the computer spit out locations rather slowly, at a rate of two or three new destinations a month, but eventually a full listing of worlds listed by the Cartouche was given and set up using the SGC's alpha-numeric designations (1.02 "Children of the Gods Part 2").
Since that time, SG-1 encountered technology of the original gatebuilders, the Ancients (2.16 "The Fifth Race"). Infused with their knowledge, Col. O'Neill entered several more worlds, unknown by the Goa'uld and not on the Abydos Cartouche, into the SGC database. Stargate Command continues to use the information from both as well as other information gathered from their travels to determine where to explore next.
Episodes
Related Characters
Related Articles
- Abydos and the Abydonian People
- Ancients
- Ancient Knowledge and Technology
- Dial Home Device (DHD)
- Goa'uld
- Repository of Knowledge
- Stargate
- Stargate Command (SGC)
--Aurora 14:06, 21 December 2006 (PST)