Table Of ContentM A G IC IN
A N C I E NT
E G Y PT
Geraldine Pinch
British Museum Press
© 1994 Geraldine Pinch
Published by British Museum Press
A division of British Museum Publications
46 Bloomsbury Street, London WCiB 3QQ
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record of this tide is available from
the British Library
ISBN O 7141 0979 I
Designed by Behram Kapadia
Typeset by Create Publishing Services
Printed in Great Britain by The Bath Press, Avon
COVER
Detail of faience plaque showing the protective lion-demon, Bes, c. ist century AD.
FRONTISPIECE and BACK COVER
One of the giant baboon statues in the area of the ruined temple of Thoth at Hermopolis,
I4th century BC. Hermopolis was famous as a centre of magical knowledge.
Contents
Acknowledgements 7
1 EGYPTIAN MAGIC 9
2 MYTH AND MAGIC 18
3 DEMONS AND SPIRITS 3 3
4 MAGICIANS AND PRIESTS 47
5 WRITTEN MAGIC 61
6 MAGICAL TECHNIQUES 76
7 MAGIC FIGURINES AND STATUES 90
8 AMULETS 104
9 FERTILITY MAGIC 120
10 MEDICINE AND MAGIC 133
11 MAGIC AND THE DEAD 147
12 THE LEGACY OF EGYPTIAN MAGIC 161
Glossary 179
Notes 181
Bibliography 183
Illustration Acknowledgements 18 6
Index 187
Acknowledgements
N
o general book on Egyptian magic can be written without
drawing on the specialised knowledge of many scholars, and
most particularly on the work of Professor J. F. Borghouts and
his pupils at Leiden. The recent translations of the Graeco-Egyptian
magical papyri by a group of scholars including H. D. Betz and J. H.
Johnson are essential reading for anyone interested in Egyptian magic.
I gratefully acknowledge the inspiration provided by a seminar series
on Egyptian magic held at Cambridge University in 1991; especially the
contributions of John Baines, Janine Bourriau, Mark Collier and John
Ray. I am grateful to Dr Stephen Quirke of the Egyptian Antiquities
Department of the British Museum for his assistance with the illus-
trations to this book and for his helpful comments on the manuscript. I
would also like to thank Celia Clear and Carolyn Jones of British
Museum Press for their work on the book.
I am grateful to the Cambridge University Press and to Graham
Fowden and Brian Copenhaver for allowing me to use quotations from
their books.
I
Egyptian Magic
E
gypt has long been considered a land of mystery and magic. This
has led some commentators, ancient and modern, to brand the
Egyptians as an irrational, morbid and superstitious race. Pro-
fessional Egyptologists prefer to distance themselves from the popular
image of Egypt as the source of occult knowledge. They tend to stress
the numerous practical achievements of Egyptian civilization and those
Egyptian writings that expound a pragmatic and cheerful philosophy of
life. This may tip the balance too far. Many of the practices described in
this book seem weird, foolish, or even repulsive from the viewpoint of
Western rationalism, but if they are ignored our picture of Egyptian
society is incomplete.
The evidence for ancient Egyptian magic spans about four and a half
thousand years. Amulets go back as far as the early fourth millennium
BC; while magical texts occur from the late third millennium BC until the
fifth century AD. Written spells are the main source material, but objects
sometimes provide evidence for types of magic scarcely recorded in the
texts. These objects would have been even more useful if all early
archaeologists had appreciated the need to record the exact context of
their finds. The large number of well-preserved tombs and the sheer
quantity of tomb objects on view in museums have ensured that
funerary magic has been the subject of much research. Ritual magic
performed in temples and everyday magic - the spells and rites enacted
for individuals in life - have been studied far less. These three types of
magic were closely related and influences passed back and forth between
them. The insights that everyday magic can give into the personal lives of
the ancient Egyptians make it of far more than marginal interest.
The Egyptian word usually translated as 'magic' is heka. This was one
of the forces used by the creator deity to make the world. In Egyptian
myth, the primeval state was chaos. Before creation there was only a
dark, watery abyss known as the Nun. In the Nun existed the great
serpent or dragon Apep (Apophis) who embodied the destructive forces
of chaos. When the first land, the Primeval Mound, rose out of the Nun,
the spirit of the creator had a place in which to take shape. The creator
made order out of chaos. This divine order was personified by a goddess
called Maat. The word maat also meant justice, truth and harmony.
Finally, the creator made deities and humans.
MAGIC IN ANCIENT EGYPT
1 Necklace of shell, coral, These deities included the god Heka, who was depicted in human
bone, ivory and glazed form, sometimes with the signs that write his name on his head (figs 2, 9,
steatite, with hippo- 11). Heka could be identified with the creator himself, particularly when
potamus amulet, c. 4000
the latter appeared in child form to symbolize the emergence of new life.
BC. This amulet is one of
Heka is also described as the ba (the soul or manifestation) of the sun
the earliest examples of
Egyptian representational god. He was the energy which made creation possible and every act of
magic was a continuation of the creative process.
10
EGYPTIAN MAGIC
Some Egyptian deities were merely personifications of abstract con- 2 Heka, god of magic
cepts or natural phenomena and were never the focus of cult worship or (far left), stands with the
goddess Maat behind
private devotion. No major temples were built for Heka, but he did have
the throne of Osiris.
a priesthood and shrines were dedicated to him in Lower (northern)
Funerary papyrus of
Egypt. There was also a goddess called Weret Hekau 'Great of Magic'. the priestess
Originally this was just an epithet, applied to a number of goddesses. As Nesitanebetisheru,
a goddess in her own right, Weret Hekau was usually shown in cobra c. 950 BC.
form. She was one of the goddesses who acted as a foster-mother to the 3 Magician's wand in the
divine kings of ancient Egypt and she was the power immanent in the form of a bronze cobra.
royal crowns. The snake-shaped wands used by magicians probably From a Theban burial,
16th century BC. Such
represent her (fig. 3).
wands may represent the
All deities and lesser supernatural beings, including the forces of
goddess Weret Hekau,
chaos, had their own heka. It was considered as much a part of them as 'the great of magic'.
11
