This paper presents an Egyptian and an Egyptian-style amulet, recently excavated in tombs in the Jebel Qurma uplands in the Black Desert of northeastern Jordan. The amulets (a pataikos and a scarab) date to the early to mid-1st millennium BCE. It is extremely rare to find such objects in this remote part of the southern Levant. While the scarab is a Levantine product from the early Iron Age, the pataikos amulet is Egyptian in origin and may have arrived in the Jebel Qurma region of Jordan after traveling from Egypt across the Sinai or northwestern Arabia.
We know how flexible the Egyptian iconographic system is and the limitations of our modern classifications, especially in regard to gods, spirits and demons. This paper reviews the god Anubis’ particular and completely distinctive iconography shown in the tomb of sculptor Nakhtamun (TT 335). Analysis of this means we can tackle the depictions of armed guardian-demons, particularly those in Chapters 145 and 146 of the Book of the Dead.
In 1889–1890, Flinders Petrie directed clearance of a late Middle Kingdom town site near al-Lahun to produce a plan of the buildings and a general description of Middle Kingdom material culture. The finds include a dramatic limestone image of the mixed hippopotamus-lion known in Egyptology by the Late Egyptian name Taweret “the great (female power).” This sculpture was mentioned, but not illustrated, in his excavation report and has therefore not attracted the attention of researchers. Here we assess the figure through its modern and ancient history, in the light of recent fieldwork at settlement sites contemporary with the Lahun town.
This article gives a brief overview about previous approaches whether the use of the term “demon” is constructive in Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Additionally, the similarities and differences between Egyptian and Mesopotamian representations of disease demons are compared in general, and then the demon Sāmānu/Akhu (ax.w) is analyzed as a case study.
This work investigates a demon, Meneh, who is attested from the Middle Kingdom until the Graeco-Roman Period in epigraphic and iconographic evidence. His epithets reflect aggression, ferocity, and violence, which Meneh uses mainly against enemies of the deities. Additionally, he can be a threat to the deceased. However, not only did he have his own cult in the Graeco-Roman temples, but he also had his own clergy. Therefore, this work studies his various aspects in extenso. Moreover, newly proposed readings of two of his epithets, as well as the similarity of functions and mutual connection to Osiris, establish his link to the butcher demons.
Upper Egypt in Neo-Assyrian Official Inscriptions : A Case Study in Neo-Assyrian Imperial Ideology
At first glance, the vastly varying forms of the more than 400 different demonic entities described and illustrated in the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts appear strange and “monstrous,” but a more detailed analysis demonstrates that their appearances have greater symbolic and practical use than previously believed. The most frequent forms of these demons are figuratively dissected here, and each component is examined to identify which animal species are utilised. The anatomy of demons can also be linked to their other attributes, assisting, enabling, or inspiring them to perform particular functions or behaviours. The variety and complexity of the physical appearances of Coffin Text demons not only demonstrate their importance as manifestations of ancient Egyptian hopes and fears but could also be key to understanding the functions of funerary demons.
In Egyptological scholarship, the so-called hippopotamus goddess is traditionally depicted as a completely benevolent being that is the effective apotropaic protectress of women and children. Even though this picture appears quite consistent with most of the documentation, nevertheless in a few textual instances the goddess, more or less explicitly, exhibits a menacing attitude towards the people she is usually thought to protect, even threatening the same children she ought strongly to defend. In the present paper, evidence of this malevolent facet of the goddess is gathered, arguing her more complex nature and role, and a more stratified worship than is commonly claimed. Even in the light of the goddess’ long-lasting fortune, such an ambiguous facet of hers makes her perhaps one of the better cases to bring to inquiry into the ancient Egyptians’ approach to the transcendental world, their deeply devotional attitude, and even their timor, towards it.
IAdt-rnpt is the most recurrent impact upon people on earth that is identified with the role of demon gangs of Sekhmet. The manifestation of demons to spread the iAdt-rnpt is remarkably associated with the blowing of pathogenic air, an argument that raises the hypothesis of a miasmatic role of demons as manifested winds. This article enlightens some aspects of the relation between the manifestation of demons and the blowing of winds carrying disease. These aspects are principally entailed in a selection of texts from the Edwin Smith Papyrus and Papyrus Leiden I 346, and in the Calendars of Lucky and Unlucky Days.
The xA.tyw, otherwise known as the Slaughterers, Knife-bearers, and Plague-bringers within academic literature, are a group of liminal deities attested in the written record from the Old Kingdom to the Greco-Roman Period. They posed a significant danger in both the terrestrial and secular realms, to the living and the dead, to the gods and mankind alike. This paper presents a preliminary discussion of the etymology and orthography of the designation xA.tyw, the group’s form and appearance, and their position within the hierarchy of the Egyptian pantheon.
Within the grand sandstone quarries of Gebel el-Silsila is a vast amount of unique symbolic representations; stylized iconographic and pseudo-scripted signs and marks that to some extent signify deities and their protection against demons, evil and mishaps. Like written protective formulae, these marks were placed within the quarries to symbolically safe-keep the quarry workers, and for expressing gratefulness once the work had been completed. For such reason a single quarry face/wall could be incised with more than 300 marks with no apparent order of distribution; some carved immediately adjacent adoration texts or dedications. In total, thus far, some 5000 quarry marks have been documented and analysed by the current archaeological concession (Lund University).This paper aims to present a selection of quarry marks that can be associated with the metaphorical world of the ancients (chiefly early Roman) with focus on assigned protective deities (eg. Bes, Min, Horus, Amun, but especially the local Agathodaimon Pachimesen); the ever assimilating daemon Shai; apotropaic figures (anguipedes, akephaloi, Harpocrates, Tutu); liminal beings; and marks used for protection, adoration, respect and gratefulness. It is an attempt to broaden the perspective of traditionally accepted ancient apotropaia, and incorporate superstitious representations communicated by a group of hard working men within the quarries of Gebel el-Silsila. The material presented is based on preliminary conclusions. (Less)
Many physical and psychological afflictions were believed to have been caused by malevolent demonic beings, who could be defended against by calling upon benevolent liminal entities for aid in those times of trouble. This article applies the theory that emotions experienced at a communal level can be discerned in the archaeological record—in this case, through the invention of new iconography and objects aimed at mitigating angst, fear, and anxiety. The introduction of clay cobra figurines at Amarna are used as a case study. Their development is analyzed within their temporal, historical and social context, and compared to other material, biological, and textual sources to determine their role in counteracting the inner demons shared by a community.
Although the Saite-Persian shaft tomb of Menkehibnekau at Abusir is more conservative in its decoration programme than that of Iufaa, it nonetheless contains several interesting and unusual features. One such element of decoration is Chapter 144 of the Book of the Dead with its vignette on the southern (entrance) wall of the burial chamber. While the placement of Pyramid Text snake spells at such locations for apotropaic/guardian functions is well known, demonic gate-guardians have so far been found only here. The vignette, moreover, uses the three-dimensional feature of the entrance to the burial chamber as the depiction of its “gates,” thus stressing even more the dual function of the BD 144 demons as both underworld gate guardians and guardians of the burial chamber of Menekhibnekau.
In the decoration of the large shaft tombs at Abusir, dated to the late Twenty-sixth/early Twenty-seventh Dynasty, several series of the underworld demons can be found. They appear in different positions—either separately, as on the inner sarcophagus of Iufaa and on the outer wooden coffin of Nekau (buried in one of the lesser burial chambers in the tomb of Iufaa), or as part of the Book of the Dead chapter 144 on the side of the burial chamber of Menekhibnekau. Another series of demons—for technical reasons mostly inaccessible—seems to exist on the inner sarcophagus of Menekhibnekau. In this paper, each of those series of demons is treated in respect to its position in the decoration of the entire burial chamber. In addition to that, several question connected to their position and use in the tombs are discussed.
Through an analysis of the letters to the dead, the paper focuses on the role played by women in Egyptian ancestor worship. Special attention is given to the missives addressed to the female spirits: the so-called misplaced stele of Merityfy, the Berlin bowl 22573, Papyrus Leiden I 371, and Ostracon Louvre 698. The investigation has highlighted the existence of a ritual to appease wrathful female ghosts. The malevolent attitude of these spirits is explained in the light of their premature death, perhaps during childbirth. Another trigger is identified as the fear of being replaced in their social role of “mistress of the house” by another woman (for example, because the husband was planning to remarry). Remarkably, the documents taken into consideration did not turn out to be a mere exorcism to ward off a malignant spirit; rather, the aim was to establish, or restore, the positive role of the ancestress as a protector of the household.
This paper examines amulets in the forms of the apotropaic liminal gods Bes and Pataikos, as represented in the archaeological assemblage from the site of Tombos in Upper Nubia. Through examination of these amulets under anthropological and archaeological conceptions of materiality, they can be linked to the individuals that would have come in contact with and used them; likewise, both object and individual can be connected back into the larger contemporary social sphere of which they would have been an active part. Tombos provides the primary case study for examining these amuletic forms in the Eighteenth and Twenty-fifth Dynasties, and examples from this site will be compared to others from sites in both Egypt and Nubia. This paper exemplifies the utility of materiality studies as applied to archaeological investigations of the daily lives and deaths of individuals in ancient Egyptian and Nubian society and hopes to foster further discussion of amuletic forms that made the transition from life into death.
Baba is a rather obscure god, occurring in magical texts since the time of the Pyramid Texts as well as in later ritual and mythical texts where he manifests as baboon or dog. This study analyzes in particular the baboon form of Baba in connection with the baboon-guardian demons in the netherworld, as they occur in mortuary compositions attested on coffins, papyri, and statues from the Middle Kingdom onward.
This article proposes a semiology-inspired model for the description of “demonic characters.” In this model, an image of a mythological character is seen as a kind of sign with a twofold plane of expression because Egyptian signifiers combine visual and verbal components. Each of these components could be expressed through text and/or display, as in the case of the “Lord of Power” described verbally in the Pyramid Texts and depicted visually in the Book of Two Ways as a Black Ram.An incarnation of the pharaoh in the Pyramid Texts, in the Book of Two Ways the “Lord of Power” is one of the “judges” threatening the deceased. Viewed from different perspectives (e.g., inhabitants of the Netherworld, the pharaoh, the noble deceased, the sungod), the Black Ram and related characters of the later sources seem to be dangerous and hostile creatures not as much “by nature” but by context and situation in which the solar energy exists in a particular moment and to whom it is opposed. More generally, this essay shows that characters often perceived as demonic genetically can possess positive divine, even solar, energy, which in some contexts can receive dangerous, aggressive manifestations.
