EGYPTOLOGY: Magic in Ancient Egypt

The habits in everyday life of the Ancient Egyptians were led by magical thinking. It is based on certain principles and shaped together with religion and mythology the worldview of those people. In this post, I want to write about magic and magical practices in Ancient Egypt.

HEKA: the Magical Power

The Egyptian word heka goes back to the very early times in the beginning of what we call today the Ancient Egyptian Culture, namely around 6000 B.C. The sun god Ra himself manifests by heka - the life force of creation or magical power. There are religious recordings of heka that says the creator gave heka to humankind as a "weapon in order to stroke off a (harming) event."^[1]

Heka was written in the hieroglyph 𓋾 and is transcribed with ḥḳꜢ. This sign is also a part of the kings ornate shown by the heka-scepter. See another article about the royal insignia: @laylahsophia/egyptology-all-hail-the-king.

_{Image 1: Ka - the upraised arms, fragment of a stela.}

The hieroglyphic combination 𓎛 𓂓 has the same phonetic value he-ka and depicts the upraised arms for divination as you can see in the editorial picture where I used an image of a so-called Ka-Statue of King Hor. The Ka is the flexible part of the soul that moves from the body to higher realms. So he-ka can be interpreted as "embracing the soul".

The purpose of the use of magic was to handle situations that are confusing and irrational in areas like sustenance and agriculture, techniques, personal and medical security, the social status and - of course - all things belonging to the afterlife. Magic was achieved through cultic practices like rituals, hymns, the calendar, prayers, divination and explaining of dreams.^[2]

The Principles of Magic

Modern scholars define Ancient Egyptian Magic by classifying it into three categories:

The productive category seeks success through magic in crafts and professions. A high level of skills was necessary to predict the annual flood, for instance, the knowledge about agriculture and so on. Love magic was also a common practice. We know this especially from written spells in terms of medical treatments. The last point is also directly connected with magic, but often more in a defensive way by defeating demons that caused the illness. Divination by priests and oracles by the local scorpion charmer can also be placed in that category.^[3]

_{Image 2: Beating of the Enemy at the Temple of Edfu}

2) Destructive magic was done through fighting the enemies, sometimes by putting spells on a figure made of alabaster, wax or wood. It is maybe comparable to the African voodoo practices^[4], but it goes far beyond. The pictorial magic in the famous "beating of the enemy"-motive is also an expression of that principle. The temple wall here serves as a medium for transporting the message and fixing it for eternity. But also the so-called "damnatio memoriae" was part of this destructive magic: the names and titles of persons fallen out of favour would be erased to prevent them from entering the afterlife. Other forms of destructive magic were spoken or written curses against an enemy. For witchcraft we have no specific terminology in the Egyptian language, although the "evil eye" and the "red eye" were known and probably associated with people that showed an asocial behaviour.^[5]

_{Image 3: A coptic magical text on Papyrus Heidelberg}

3) Defensive magic was used against diseases, bad dreams and other (incoming) magic. But its purpose was also to defend negative influences of powerful gods (for example the god Seth) and to prevent harming by dangerous animals such as snakes and scorpions. In critical transitional periods, for instance giving birth or at the end of the year defensive magic was the key to safety.^[6]

Professional Magicians

In Ancient Egypt, there was no clear distinction between a priest that was responsible for the execution of the daily cult in the temple, the magician that made divinations and oracles to predict the future and medical healers^[7] that used magic in their treatments. That shows the tight weaving of those crafts and their importance in the everyday life. Magic was an inherent part of the world in Ancient Egypt and had an impact on almost everything they did and said.

_{Image 4: A so called protective knife, worked like a magic wand (German: "Zaubermesser"). Decorated with apotropaic figures (figures to defend against demons).}

The Curse of the Pharao?

Many people heard of the curse of the Pharao that had a deep impact on how we perceive today this ancient culture. Is this true? Did the Pharao put a (defensive) spell on all potential tomb robbers in the future?

There are two things to distinguish: it was a common practice in some periods of the Ancient Egyptian culture when tomb owners warned people when they passed by a tomb. In many cases, after the death of a person, his relatives practised a death cult by bringing food and other supplies to the tomb for a while. They were convinced the tomb owner needed some magical support on his way to the afterlife and so they put goods as offerings to the gods and also to provide the deceased with all that's necessary on the "other side". So the tombs itself were visible for a long time and potential tomb robbers would know the places were the treasures were. To prevent them from breaking in the entrances of the tombs were written with magical spells like (simplified): "This is my tomb. If you break in, you will be punished." It is also known as "Call on the Living" (German: "Anruf an die Lebenden"). The living people should be warned of the deceased's power from the afterlife.^[8]

_{Image 5: Howard Carter and other people examining the mummy of Tutankhamun.}

The other phenomenon that caused modern people (and even some scientists) to think of a curse of the pharao was the fact, that after opening some of the thousands of years old tomb chambers a significant number of people got sick or died shortly after, sometimes under "mysterious" circumstances. But as we know now the sickness could have been caused by fungi or bacteria that came from the mummies and the organic grave goods that were sealed such a long time under the sands. In the beginning of egyptological excavation, nobody cared about hygienic or working safety. They opened the entrance and went inside the tomb without a dust mask or anything like that. And beside this, working in archaeological missions in Egypt has been and still is a dangerous venture. We just don't know what is expecting us when we enter a void. It is a fact, that tomb constructions, especially from members of the royal families were sometimes built by a very intelligent system of blocking stones that were activated directly after the closing of the tomb. Generally we can not assume that they were made to get people "trapped" when entering the tomb years after the funeral.

_{Footnotes and sources:}

_{[1] Borghouts, J.F., in: Lexikon der Ägyptologie III, Wiesbden 1980, cols. 1137–1151 (1141), s.v. Magie.

[2] loc. cit. cols. 1141 f.

[3] loc. cit. col. 1142.

[4] so called "curse tablets" (German: Fluchtäfelchen) were used like amuletts and were a phenomenon of the late periods. See: Uttermann, Matthias, Ägyptische Magie im Wandel der Zeiten, Heidelberg 2011, Online available as PDF. Source

[5] Borghouts, J.F., in: Lexikon der Ägyptologie III, Wiesbden 1980, cols. 1137–1151 (1143), s.v. Magie.

[6] loc. cit. col. 1144.

[7] see: Papyrus Ebers; Ritner, Robert K., Innovations and Adaptations in Ancient Egyptian Medicine, in: Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 107-117, http://www.jstor.org/stable/545610.

[8] Assmann, Jan, Tod und Jenseits in Ägypten, München 2001.}

_Images:
_{Image used in the editorial picture is a so called Ka-Statue. Source.

Graphical overview of magical categories: my own work.

Image 1 Source

Image 2 Source

Image 3: Uttermann, Matthias, Ägyptische Magie im Wandel der Zeiten, Heidelberg 2011, page 9.;

Image 4 Source; Image 5 Source}

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