Rita Lucarelli studied at
the University of Naples,
where she received her MA
degree in classical languages
and Egyptology.
Her 2005 PhD is from Leiden
University in the Netherlands.
And her dissertation
was published in 2006
as "The Book of the
Dead of Gatseshen--"
it's a tough one
to say, Gatseshen--
"Ancient Egyptian
Funerary Religion
in the 10th Century BC."
From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Lucarelli
held a part-time position
as lecturer in Egyptology
at the University of Verona.
From 2009 to '12, she
worked as a research scholar
on The Book of the Dead project
at the University of Bonn.
And she was a visiting research
scholar at the Italian Academy
of Advanced Studies at
Columbia University in 2009
and at the Institute for the
Study of the Ancient World,
or ISAW, at NYU in 2012.
Until June 2014, she worked as a
research scholar and a lecturer
at the Department of
Egyptology at Bonn,
and she's held a part
time position as lecturer
in the same field at the
University of Bari in Italy.
Clearly, she gets around.
As for the present
day, Rita Lucarelli
is currently associate
professor of Egyptology
at the University of
California in Berkeley
and faculty curator of
Egyptology at the Phoebe A.
Hearst Museum of
anthropology there.
And may we take this
moment to congratulate her
on her very recent
achievement of getting tenure
at the University of
California Berkeley.
[APPLAUSE]
Collective sigh of relief.
What a wonderful
feeling that is.
She's also a fellow of the
digital humanities at Berkeley.
And she's currently
working at a project
to produce 3D models of
ancient Egyptian coffins
at the Hearst Museum.
The magical spells
decorating these objects
are taken as a case study for
investigating the materiality
of the text in relation to
ancient Egyptian funerary
literature.
Dr. Lucarelli is
completing a monograph
on demonology in ancient Egypt.
And she's one of
the coordinators
of The Ancient Egyptian
Demonology Project,
which has the very cool website
address of www.demonthings.com.
She's also working on
a web project called
"The Book of the Dead in
3D" on the visualization
of ancient Egyptian coffins
through photogrammatry.
But tonight, it's
all about the demons.
Please welcome Dr.
Rita Lucarelli.
[APPLAUSE]
Good evening.
And so do I talk and I don't
need to use this maybe?
Good evening, everybody.
Thank you, Peter.
And thank you to the HMSC
for this kind invitation.
I'm very happy to
speak here tonight.
And while coming
from California,
I'm also myself Italian.
I've been living now for
five years in California.
It's good to be
reminded what winter is.
I mean, this is sunny day
for you, but for me still
very cold.
But anyway, I am
very happy to be here
and to talk about my
favorite topic ever--
magic and demonology.
Especially, as Peter say,
I'm completing a monograph
on demons in ancient
Egypt, a topic
that is keeping me
busy since years now.
But it's still very exciting.
And I keep making new
discoveries, little discoveries
that I'm happy to
share tonight with you.
So to start anyway before
speaking about the demons,
I would like to talk about
magic in ancient Egypt
and define, indeed,
what was magic
for the ancient Egyptians.
And I will show you different
kinds of sources, objects,
texts, and talk on the
objects, about their functions,
and how they relate
to magical techniques.
And to start to with, one
on my favorite objects
ever is this statuette.
It's a wooden figurine,
actually, dated
to the late Middle Kingdom.
You can probably-- OK, they give
me a very fancy, yes, pointer.
So details, you can note
the lion-headed face.
It's a female naked body.
She's holding two snake wands.
They look like this one
that is kept in Cambridge.
And those are clearly
tools used in magic.
This one, in particular, has
been found entangled with hay.
So going back to the
statuette, we do not
know exactly how it was used.
But there are
signs of use on it.
So it was used in
some performance.
And in this case, this is one
of the rare cases where we also
have an archeological
context of magic.
Generally, magical
tools and texts
have been found out of context.
This one was found in what
we call The Magician Tomb.
So a tomb near the
Ramesseum in Thebes,
so where there were
also other objects
related to magical practices and
even papyri with magical text.
So we know it was,
anyway, figurine
used in magic representing maybe
a goddess, a female version
of a dwarf god with
lion head called Bast
that I will show you later.
Or maybe it was a sort of
priestess with the lion mask.
So in order to be
assimilated to the gods,
we'll see other examples,
priests could wear masks.
We don't know
exactly, but it was
an object found in a context
that speaks all about magic.
And snake wands or snake
figures are very much
used in ancient Egyptian magic.
So I thought that in order
to define Egyptian magic,
we should also speak
about the reception
of ancient Egyptian
magic in the west.
And the snake still plays a
role, already, in antiquity.
So really starting
from the Bible.
Probably, you are
familiar with the story
that is told in Exodous.
It's a biblical story where we
have Egyptian magicians that
were presented as sort
of, indeed, wizards trying
to do illusions,
work with illusions,
while the real
performers of miracles,
so the real magic, we could say,
is the one performed by Aaron.
Aaron's staff
transforming in a snake
and swallowing the staffs
of the Egyptian magicians.
And it is said, if you
can read on the screen,
that the Egyptian magicians
also did the same things
by their secret arts.
So Egyptian magic was
already seen as a secret art,
as something secret,
connected mostly to illusion,
not real, basically,
and also not truth.
That's why, in the
end, we can say
that God's snake won, basically,
on the Egyptian snakes.
This conception of
magic as something
related to illusion,
to trickster gods,
or a profession is
not the real one
that we had in ancient Egypt.
In ancient Egypt,
magic was a god.
Or better, we call magic a
god or in ancient Egyptian
He is called the Heka.
And he is represented
in this image
from a Ramesside tomb, tomb
of Ramesses I, as indeed
the anthropomorphic male figure.
He plays an important role.
He is standing in the solar
boat with the sun god.
And scenes representing
the sun god in the boat
during a journey in
the nether worlds
are very common in ancient
Egypt and very important.
They symbolized the way
the cyclical becoming
of night and day, of rebirth.
And death and rebirth continue
to happen, so day by day.
So basically, all creation
is represented in the scene
of the sun in the boat.
And Heka being part of
the boat of the solar god
means that Heka plays
a role in creation.
So we translate "Heka" as magic.
But there is a
problem of translation
of an indigenous
Egyptian term translated
in a word that, in English,
has a different perception.
Magic, the English magic,
comes from Greek "mageia."
But the Greek word used
from the 5th century BC
had a negative meaning.
So mageia was a practice
against the gods.
This is not the case
for Egyptian magic.
Egyptian magic is
integral part of religion.
And Heka is
personified as a god.
So magic is a god.
Another one of my favorite
images of the god Heka
is this one from a papyrus
of The Book of the Dead.
So a magical scroll to protect
the deceased in the tomb
and accompanying him
or her in the journey
in the nether world.
And so here with we see Osiris
on a throne accompanied also
by the goddess of truth
and of order, Maat.
And Maat, you recognize
again this male, human figure
holding a snake staff.
So again the snake wand
is a symbol of magic
and is a scene of the deceased
arriving in the nether world,
entering the so-called
the Hall of Truth.
So magic is definitely
seen as something positive.
And there is also another
interesting goddess.
This is a sort of minor
goddess not always mentioned
in textbooks on the
ancient Egyptian pantheon.
But "Weret-hekau" literally,
to be translated as "great
of magic," was an important
goddess also represented
the with the sun disk, so
connected to the solar god,
again, in this scene
crowning the pharaoh,
also in other contexts,
protecting the disease.
And this name, this divine name
"Weret-hekau," great of magic,
can be found also, are
similar in connection to other
goddesses like Isis, Mut, so
very well-known goddesses.
So to be great of magic is
actually something divine.
It's a very positive
characteristic.
So in my study--
OK, I never use this cream.
[LAUGHING]
So I cannot really-- this
is not an advertising slide.
But I just speaking
about Egyptian magic.
And since what I'm trying
to do in my research,
also, distinguish different
kind of magical practices
and different kind of magics.
I thought it was a
nice photo to have.
If you want to try it anyway,
I know my students told me
that can be found at Target.
So what kind of magic they
used in ancient Egypt?
Why they needed magic?
And why we speak of
magic as something,
anyway, distinguished from the
greater phenomenon of religion,
although it is strongly
connected to religion?
The Egyptians were basically
obsessed with protection,
being protected from
everything and everybody
in life and in death.
And in order to
be protected, they
were using a lot of magical
practices, magical texts.
And they were also asking
the favor of the gods,
of course, who should
help to protect.
So what we call defensive
or apotropaic magic
is a magic used
especially for protection
in order to ward off the danger
before the danger arrives.
And when we will
talk about demons,
as well, you will
see how important
it was to be able to ward
off danger, especially,
not only in the nether
world, but especially
in certain regions
of the netherworld
where dangers where very common.
So spells of defensive
magic can be found
on different kinds of objects.
We have amulets,
objects of protection,
which are also part
of this phenomenon
that we can call
defensive magic.
But sometimes,
well, they weren't
able to use the spell of
defensive magic on time.
And so if something went
wrong, if they got bitten
by a dangerous snake or
already have symptoms
of illness illness,
they will need what
we could call curative magic.
So the difference is that, well,
let's say if you're on time
and you see the
snake coming, you
can still recite a spell
of defensive magic.
But if the snake
already been biting you,
then you can still
use curative magic.
And hopefully, you'll
be fine later on.
So we have also healing
statues used in temples
to cure disease.
And text we call magical
medical text, meaning that magic
was mixed with real
medical practices
and medical knowledge.
And I'll return
on that later on.
Another interesting kind of
magic used in pharaonic Egypt,
but also later on in
Greco-Roman Egypt and a lot
in antiquities--
transformative magic, which
you can also find in books
named as love magic.
And probably you're more
familiar with love magic.
Love magic is make sure
to bind the person,
you can change the
feelings of a person
so that he or she
will love you in forms
of spells of love magic.
Or you can try to bind
the person to you.
But transformative
magic can also
be very positive, not
aggressive as love magic,
and can be found also in
funerary mortuary papyri
where the disease say that he
wished to transform in a god
or in a divine animal,
even in a plant,
in a sort of very
powerful beings.
Also we should be
aware anyway that there
was no black magic in Egypt.
So the concept of black
magic is really more
of a Western concept.
And probably, you now
already understand why.
Heka being a god,
part of creation,
there was no way that
magic was illegal.
We have a few examples
of magical spells used
against the state, the Pharaoh.
In that case, that became
an illegal form of magic.
Because in ancient Egypt,
you could use magic
for your own good, but you
could maybe also use it,
we have some cases, to
harm a personal adversary.
But you cannot use it against
the pharaoh because that would
be like going against gods.
So we do not have black magic.
And magic was a
totally divine matter.
Who were the main
agents of magic?
Well, the Egyptian
magicians where priests.
They could be doctors.
They could be also
local wise men.
We have different
kind of magicians.
But they had to deal a lot
with the supernatural world.
They had to be able
to summon up the gods.
And not only the gods,
but also some order
liminal creatures
that I call demons.
And so today I would
like to explain to you
why I call demons and
why I differentiate them
from the gods.
But before doing that,
we should also first
speak about the divine
dimension and what
gods were in ancient Egypt.
They were called netjerw.
So "netjer" is the singular for
"netjerw," plural, the gods.
And gods were very
often represented also
in papyri or in temples.
Let's say, the same
kind of sources
that we use for
demons were also used
for the representation of gods.
How can we differentiate what
is a god and what is a demon?
Well, gods appear a lot in
myths of creations where demons
don't.
So this is a typical
scene of the creation
according to the so-called
Heliopolitan myths based
on the myth of the
sun goddess creator
Atum, the form of the sun god.
And it's a beautiful image with
the sky goddess Nut arching
over the Earth god Geb.
And Shu, the god of
air, sustaining the sky
with a lot of other
deities all around
is a scene that is often
represented also in sarcophagi.
It's a protective scene,
especially for the deceased,
who wants to be reborn
as a god as well.
So gods are part of a mythic
dimension, and demons are not.
Gods also really take
care of the deceased
and also people on earth.
So in this beautiful
scene, we see, again,
a priest with a mask
of the god Horus,
the falcon god,
who is performing
the ritual of the mouth
on the mummified deceased.
And this ritual for
opening the mouth
was a powerful ritual for
empowering the body of the dead
and having it ready for the
journey in the afterlife.
So gods really take
care of the deceased,
while demons, we will see,
communicate with the deceased
and also with
humankind on earth.
But they do not really
take care of them.
They just need to be appeased
or make sure that they will not
be angry at you.
Another important dimension,
which is especially connected
to the world of
especially the main gods,
the official pantheon,
is the cultic dimension.
So gods have cults on earth.
They have shrines.
They are worshipped.
While demons, well,
there are exceptions
of demons that had some kind
of worship, but, in general,
they only appear in
a different setting
where there is no
sign of real worship.
It's only about communicating
with the demons.
Here we see again,
Ra, here, Ra-Horakhte
in this stela with the deceased
and his wife honoring it.
A problem that we have
with the gods and demons--
and there are many of them--
is a problem of identification,
so manifestation, how the
gods and demons manifest
and how we recognize them.
And the most unlucky
one in being recognized
is Wepwaet, who is a jackal god.
He's an independent jackal god.
His name means "the
opener of the ways."
And indeed, he is found
as guardian of gates.
But he is very
much confused with,
as in this, comics, with
the most famous Anubis, also
a jackal god, taking
care of mummification.
So generally, gods have more
fixed iconography in comparison
to demons.
Demons can switch
shapes more often.
But we have, for instance, many
jackal demons and many jackal
gods, some anonymous figures
I'll show you soon that cannot
be identified.
So how you do in
these cases, that's
where context and text, if
we are lucky to have text,
help a lot.
So here is, again, a
different Anubis and Wepwaet.
Generally, Wepwaet
is mostly represented
as a full jackal
animal, while Anubis
has the head of a jackal and
a human body, but not always.
Sometimes they are
represented together
and they are both two jackals.
So it's an open issue,
how to recognize
divine or supernatural figures.
And we have also a lot of
jackal demons, as I say.
So I already say too many
times, demons, demons,
what are demons
in ancient Egypt?
We have seen magic.
Heka was a god.
Again, we have first of all
talk about the terminology we
are using, which is sort
of conventional translation
of ancient concepts
expressed in a different way.
So Heka, we translate
it with magic.
And what do we
translate with demons?
There is no one Egyptian
word in ancient Egypt
that we can really
translate as demon.
The English word comes
from Greek "daimon."
And the term "daimon," I'll
talk to you about it in a bit,
is also very ambiguous.
It can mean a lot of things.
But the perception
we have of demons
is generally the
perception created
by the Judeo-Christian
sphere of religion
where demons are basically bad.
They are negative figures.
They are pernicious.
So this is one of
my favorite images
of Dante's Divina Commedia,
The Divine Comedy representing
the nine circles of hell.
And that's the ninth
circle where betrayers
are punished by these demons.
And so demons are seen
indeed as punishers.
They are totally
negative beings.
We will see how that's not
the case in ancient Egypt.
Also demons are seen from
the same kind of perception
as symbols of temptation, sin.
So in this very early
painting of Michelangelo,
"The Torment of St.
Anthony," we see
represented, an episode written
in the life of St. Anthony
when he had a dream.
He was levitating in the sky
while being in the desert
and attacked by demons.
But, of course, he was
a very strong saint,
and he defeat all those demons.
And here, demons are
sins and temptations.
And this is also
not the case for
the ancient Egyptian demons.
Also, we think to demons
as possessing humans.
They possess the body.
So we have a lot of horror
movies reminding us about this,
like The Exorcist, 1973.
There are no real cases of
possession in ancient Egypt.
And though we will see
how, especially in relation
to disease and
illnesses, they were
kind of personifying
the disease as a demon.
So some scholars speak of
possession in that case,
since the disease is
possessing the body.
But it's not exactly the same as
in the real Christian ideology.
And demons are
much feared today.
In my homeland, in Italy,
there is an Exorcism and Prayer
of Liberation Course.
You can just enroll
for 400 euros.
It will take place
in May, the next one,
and is offered also to teachers.
Maybe they think students can be
kind of possessed, so demonic.
But anyway, so demons
are still really--
they are really actual as
very dangerous creatures.
And so one has to
be related, has
to call god, the only
good god, in order
to be free from the demons.
But let's go back to antiquity.
So let's see the
definition of "daimon"
which is where the word
"demon" comes from.
There are many
definitions of daimon
and daimones from ancient
Greek authors and philosophers.
But the most famous one
is certainly the one
from the Symposium from Plato.
So in Plato's
Symposium, learned men,
philosophers are
discussing about love.
And, well, love is also
considered, by some of them,
as a demon.
So that's why they explain
what demons are, daimones.
And so it says in
this passage that you
can read on the screen,
"everything that is daemonic
is intermediate
between God and mortal.
Daimones are
interpreters and fairy
men carrying divine
things to mortals
and mortal things to gods;
request and sacrifices
from below and commandments
and answers from above.
For the divine does not
mix with the mortal.
And it is only
through the mediation
of the daimones that
mortals can have
an interaction with the
gods, either while awake
or while asleep."
So this idea of demons
as intermediates
actually fits very well.
The Egyptian
conception of demons
is seen as, some scholars
speak of minor gods,
but anyway, liminal
figures that kind
of communicate between
the main gods and humans.
There is also
another term that I
like a lot to define
Egyptian demons,
in general, pre-Christian
demons, which is actually
a German word, "grenzgaenger"
meaning literally "the border
crossers."
And it's a word used by
an historian of religion
from Heidelberg, Gregor
Ahn, who was indeed talking,
and he was studying and writing
about pre-Christian concepts
of the supernatural.
He actually told me once
that there is no way
to translate it in English,
that I should just use the word
"grenzgaenger" because while
the German is very pregnant,
but, well, I think border
crossers renders the idea.
The Greeks also distinguish
good and bad demons.
So in particular,
the Agathos daimon
was seen as a benevolent
snake, here represented
in this fresco in
Pompeii near an altar.
So demons in ancient Greece
already weren't, by definition,
bad.
They could be good or bad.
And here, we are
getting much closer
to the ancient Egyptian
concept of demons.
And so here they are,
some of those creatures
that I call demons.
So like you can see all those.
This is the deceased,
the goddess of the tree.
So some of them, as I say, gods
and demons appear together.
But those beings, hybrid
being with the animal
head, not all of
them, and mummified,
sitting body,
holding knives, those
are not gods with temples.
Sometimes they are anonymous.
And they are represented
a lot, especially
in the mortuary
papyri, on coffins,
in tombs, because they guard
the regions of the nether world.
They are not necessarily bad.
They can only be
dangerous to the one who
doesn't have the specific
knowledge to approach them.
And this specific,
secret knowledge
is contained in
these spells written
on papyri in tombs and coffins.
And those spells give us
the names of these demons.
So it will tell us which region
of gate they are guarding.
So they are, anyway, protectors.
They are guardians.
And they have many different
names, not just one.
So there is not one name, again,
that we can translate as demon.
Sometimes, they have no names.
They are only
represented, like here,
in a series, always
holding knives,
or again, demon snake wand.
I particularly like this one
with the duck on his head.
I'm still looking
for inspiration.
It's a hieroglyph for fear.
But I didn't find
parallels still.
Also some of them,
as you can see here,
they hold lizards, which
is a symbol of fertility,
of abundance.
And you can see some of
them are jackal-headed.
We have two here.
But are those Anubis?
Are those Wepwaet?
Or is this just a jackal demon.
Those are the questions
one cannot answer without
the caption saying the name.
But the function is clear.
They are protecting here the
mummified body of the deceased
in the center.
And here, the mummified
body is the symbol
of the mummified Osiris.
The god of the dead the
will be then reborn.
So those kind of protectors
cannot be considered main gods.
They can not be considered,
though, as bad demons.
And you can see
some of the names.
And here is another
image of those guardians
here, represented in this
papyrus in front of doors,
so sometimes as a
triad or individually.
Here are the deceased
and the wife,
who are entering these
regions and had to pass
through different gates.
So names like "face-downwards,"
"numerous of shapes,"
or "sad of voice," "one
who stretch out his brow,"
"one with vigilant face,"
or "the radiant one"
are very evocative names.
They say something
about the function.
They make allusions.
They can describe a physical
characteristic of the demons.
And sometimes some
of these names
are also used for gods as
epithets, god epithets.
So there is, anyway, a
lot of interconnections
between those gods and demons.
And this is instead the coffin.
Maybe you can see here how
the deceased is entering
again a region at the end.
Here is the text
he has to recite.
And then the demon is
represented in one gate.
Another example of a beautiful
coffin with a series of demons
is this one.
I have some close-up to
show you the creatures.
Why on the side of the case?
It's just, generally, that's the
place of the demons on coffins.
Well, they were really
protecting very close
by the mummified body.
So it's an allusion, of
course, to the myth of death
and rebirth of Osiris
and how those divine
and demonic guardians were
protecting Osiris' body.
And at the Museum of
Fine Arts here, there
is also one of the
cutest guardians
I know with the four cobras.
It's an identified fragment.
And I hope to work
on this later on.
But at least I could
see from the text
that this fragment
comes from a longer
text which is part
of a spell on how
to approach these guardians.
So there is the spell from
the eighth portal of spell
145 of The Book of the Dead.
And this guy, as you can see
again, is holding a knife,
is called "he who
protects his body."
So "his body" meaning
the body of the deceased.
So again those are protectors.
They're not evil demons.
And we have a few
three-dimensional versions
of those guardians.
This is the one I use for the
flyer of this lecture, a very
impressive little statuette.
They've been found only in
royal tombs, kind of mysterious
still why only in
certain contexts,
royal contexts, New
Kingdom, Ramesside period.
And so we see here the head
of a gazelle, it seems like,
and the body in this counter
position, almost a bit
menacing, aggressing.
We have also another
statue of the same group
with a demon which is
definitely a turtle demon.
So he has the head of a turtle.
And it's really
beautiful, also, how
they connect the animal
shape with the wig,
so with the human part.
And so those also, the
only possible explanation
is that they were
protecting, guarding
the tomb of the pharaohs.
But where are the scary demons?
Do we have scary demons
in ancient Egypt?
Or is it only about
guardians and protectors?
And we have seen,
they're kind of cute.
They're not really scary.
I cannot say the guardian
demons are scary--
what we intend, anyway,
as scary demons.
Again, it's a question of
interpretation, of perception.
Beauty is in the eye of
the beholder, of course.
So maybe for what is
beautiful or ugly for us,
wasn't for the
ancient Egyptians.
So our idea of monster is
something ugly, aesthetically
ugly.
And generally, a monster
is a composite animal,
a kind of fantastic animal
like this one that is actually
an Egyptian creature.
Here, in the real
version with Anubis,
it's called Amemet, the
devourer of the dead,
and is, indeed, a
composite animal--
face of a crocodile, the body
of a lion and a hippopotamus.
And he-- she,
sorry, it's a lady.
She appears only in the
scene of the final judgment
of the deceased.
Here we see the god Anubis who
is taking care of the balance
in order to weigh the heart
with the goddess Maat.
So this is the Egyptian
heart and the goddess Maat.
What Amemet is doing, Amemet
is ready to devour the deceased
who doesn't pass the judgment.
Here, even more, she's ready.
She's ready to go if the
deceased has been lying,
committing sin, and so he will
recite the negative confession,
but will not pass the judgment.
And here the deceased
is Ani-- this
is one of the most famous
papyri of The Book of the Dead--
with his wife, the god Thoth.
The ibis god Thoth is
writing the verdict.
And then after that, Amemet
could devour the deceased.
But in fact, that
never happened.
Because all the
Egyptians who could
afford to have a Book
Of The Dead papyrus
in their funerary
equipment, they
will have the magic
knowledge also
to make sure to become a blessed
dead, a transfigured spirit
in the afterlife.
So basically, they will
never be devoured by Amemet,
who keep staying hungry.
And this is also--
well, I don't know if to
consider, sometimes in books
you find Amemet
described as a monster.
In the eyes of the Egyptians,
this wasn't a monster.
The Egyptians were
using composite figures
with different animal
parts, different hieroglyphs
on a daily basis.
So having different
animal parts was just
a way to really make
sure that the demon here
showed his power.
This can also be
maybe considered
a sort of scary creature, with
the crocodile or vulture head,
spitting snakes, holding other
snakes, even with daggers
on the feet.
What was their function, though?
Well, they were actually
scaring another kind of demons,
the nightmare demons.
Nightmares were seen as
demons, but the bad one,
the real bad one.
And they are never represented.
Basically, the Egyptians never
represent the evil demons.
They only represented
the protectors.
So here those are protectors.
And they are depicted at the
base of this head rest, which
was used indeed for sleeping,
though I know it doesn't
look very comfortable.
But we have a lot
from ancient Egypt.
As I say, nightmare demons
weren't represented,
but they were feared.
And we have spells against
them, like this one,
a book of dispelling terrors
which come to fall upon a man
during the night.
And indeed, the
nightmare demons were
seen as coming from the
sky, falling on, really,
the breast of the sleeper,
like in this painting.
And this is a bit of
the sensation we have
when we wake up
from a nightmare,
actually feeling kind
of heavy in our chest.
And so maybe these kinds of
descriptions were also made
on the basis of what they felt.
And other evil demons that are
not so often
represented are maybe,
because I cannot be sure
of this interpretation,
can be represented
in this sketch.
We see a kind of human
figure sketched here,
attacked by very
stylized crocodiles.
And this is a very short papyrus
used as an amulet on the neck,
rolled and kept on the
neck, with the spell
here, which speaks
about protection
against the evil dead.
I have the text here.
They talk about male
enemy, female enemy,
male dead, female dead.
And so the evil dead, it's a
sort of companion of the demons
we have been seeing.
But they are never
represented, again.
So spells against those
evil, menacing creatures
are very common.
But we do not have
representations
of those demons.
Speaking about these
amuletic papyri,
we have the so-called
Oracular Amuletic Decrees,
which are strips of
papyri kept in those.
Well, we don't
have many examples,
but this is one of the most
beautiful papyrus holder
and brought at the
neck as protection.
And so they were, as I
say, seeking protection
from every male spirit,
the dead, the demon,
every female spirit.
In this text, then,
they mention the demon.
I mean, the weret is
the Egyptian term.
We translate it as
demon of the water,
of the city, of the
village, of the street.
Everywhere could be one
of those bad demons.
But they, for a sort of
taboo, are never represented.
And these are the demons
that I call wanderers.
Because, differently from the
guardians, they go around.
They just, they are not
static as the guardians,
just limited to
protecting their own gate.
And they wander around,
and they can bring disease.
They can be called in spells
as messengers, murderers,
or other similar
names, names that
make us think that they
were going around in gangs.
But they were controlled
by main gods, in this case,
by the lioness goddess Sakhmet.
So this is also an
indication that demons
can be controlled and
subordinated to gods.
And therefore,
they are different.
And very nice, the only example
I found of a disease demon
represented is this
headache demon, we call it.
Because "sehaqeq" literally
means in ancient Egypt
"half head."
And if you suffer of migraine,
you know that takes half head
and it's very demonic.
So apparently that's what
this young male represents.
Sehaqeq in the text
on this ostracon,
we also have the name
of the parents, which
seems to be a foreigner
name, not Egyptians,
is covering his face.
And he has here not his tail,
but his tongue on his back.
We know that because
of the text which
says, "you with the
tongue on your back."
So those bad demons
could also really
have a distorted body,
a body which is not
the proper body that should be.
And this demonization
of illness is actually
also common in other,
not just religions,
but just feeling for getting
rid of the illness in general.
You have representation,
like here,
of the tooth worm as hell demon.
And this is just
an ivory carving
with this hellish scene.
Probably, in also
talking with colleagues
that work on other
demonic traditions
where also we have
the disease demons,
it seems that
demonizing an illness
helps the patient
psychologically also
to be strong and get
rid of the illness.
And this is why we have
many magical spells where
medical prescriptions
are also included.
It seems like the
Egyptian doctors
were using magical
spells together
with medical knowledge.
And probably, they thought
that the combination of the two
was really effective.
So now that we have just seen a
bit of different kind of demons
in ancient Egypt, what
about a comparison
of the Egyptian demons
with neighboring countries,
especially with
Mesopotamia, which
is a close neighbor
of ancient Egypt?
It seems that in
Mesopotamia, we have
instead many more evil demons.
And the conception of being
protected by the demons
was also much stronger.
So in this amulet
against Lamashtu,
Lamashtu is a
famous female demon,
a demoness who was
especially feared
because of killing babies.
We see here the
iconography of Lamashtu
is trampling a donkey, which
reminds in Egyptian iconography
where, anyway, we see the
god Horus the child trampling
crocodiles.
And the crocodiles
here are the danger,
the dangerous animal connected
also to the evil demons.
And on top of these
two Amuletic objects,
this is called Cippus of Horus,
indeed, because of the figure
of Horus the child.
We see also two
similar frontal faces.
This is a god, again, it's Bast.
It's an anthropomorphic
god with a sort
of lion face protecting
women during childbirth
from the bad demons.
While this is Pazuzu,
also very dangerous demon.
In this context,
Pazuzu, a demon,
is protecting the
owner of the amulet
from Lamashtu,
while here we have
two gods figure in an object,
which is again a magical object
to heal, to heal a
patient with disease.
But the iconography is much
more connected to the idea
that gods are in charge,
let's say, on the demons.
So when you compare the
different demonologies
in polytheistic systems, so
pre-Christian demonology,
you can see kind of
nuances and differences,
how they dealt with demons.
The most important thing
for me is that, anyway,
they all had beliefs in
demons, in not main gods.
And so I also think that if
Mesopotamia demons as well
as other ancient civilizations,
why we should not speak
about demons in ancient Egypt.
So that's why my
book I talk still
about ancient
Egyptian demonology.
I call demons agents
of protection,
agents of punishment
according to the context.
But I still speak about
demons, while there
are other scholars
who prefer to speak
only of gods in ancient
Egypt, minor or major gods.
Because we do not
have a word for demon.
Also, what we do not
have in ancient Egypt is
a real demonology, which is
good for me because then,
well, I can write a lot.
I can do the demonology
that they didn't do,
so a demonology intended
as a discourse on demons.
Something that we found,
for instance, instead,
in the Jewish world where we
have many texts describing
demons, the categories of
demons, hierarchies of demons.
These are also magical objects,
so-called Jewish Babylonian
incantation ball, a bit
older than the objects we
have seen from ancient Egypt.
They were inscribed also with
magical spells all around,
mostly having sacred
text, and then
having the image of a
demon in the middle.
And those are well-known
demons with long traditions
that went through
the Renaissance,
through the Jewish world.
And this is Asmodeus,
it's called,
these very dangerous demons.
Although, here you
can see it looks more
like a sort of Batman
or kind of funny one.
Those sketches were not made
by a really skilled artist.
The purpose was not to have
a very nice representation
of the demons, as for the
ancient Egyptian sources,
but they had much more
information on these beings.
And, oh, by the way, those
bowls were used in the houses
in order, it seems,
to trap the demon,
to make sure that he will
not move around freely
in the house.
They are very
interesting objects that
are being currently studied.
So we do not have a
demonology, but we
do have in ancient
Egypt, a lot of demons.
We've seen many sources.
And I am currently working
in finding demons on coffins.
Because, while papyri have been
very much studied until now,
while we have many beautiful
coffins around in museums
that are still unstudied.
In coffins, also, are mentions
of guardian demons or spells
speaking like this one, spell
72 of The Book of the Dead
where it is said
at a certain point,
"rescue me from the
voracious crocodile,"
sort of dangerous being.
Because I know you,
I know your name.
So it's a very often-used spell
on those coffins like this one.
And as Peter said when
he was presenting me,
I am working on a
project for realizing
a 3D models of those
coffins to make
possible to study the three
dimensionality of the object
and to study also the
materiality of the text, how
the text is completely
connected to the object.
Why text on coffins?
Well, especially from
the first millennium BC,
coffins were used almost
as if they were papyri.
So we have here, for
instance, from this picture,
it seems like this is a
detail of papyrus with spells,
but actually this comes from a
very heavily textualized coffin
from the 26th Egyptian dynasty.
We have a lot of
spells on this coffin.
So we can speak of
coffin textualization,
of coffin magic.
They really, especially in the
later periods in ancient Egypt,
they wanted the protection to
be really close to the body,
closer than having it on papyri.
So we can really learn
a lot from those texts,
which are variants
of the same text used
on papyri differently.
So my project called "The
Book of the Dead in 3D,"
through photogrammetry,
realizing 3D models
of coffins in the sarcophagi.
This is one of them with
the spell also connected
to demons and protection,
for preventing
the slaughtering done in
Henennesut, a kind of a bit
mysterious title.
But it's connected
to also mythological
fact and allusions.
And as you can see,
the text is just here.
It's a very abridged
version of the same spell
we found in papyri.
Other coffins we've been
working at are those of Iwefaa
that we found in Berkeley at the
Hearst Museum of Anthropology
where we have a vast Egyptian
collection still unpublished.
And looking through
the storage rooms,
we could find the inner
coffin of this guy Iwefaa
so we could digitally
reunite them.
And again here, we
don't have much time.
But I'll show you
maybe the model.
We have many images
of mainly gods.
But that help a
lot to understand
how this imagery of gods and
demons was used on sources.
This is the coffin
of Patjenef, which
wasn't in great condition.
But we analyzed the
model because it has
my favorite guardians on it.
So a series of, you can
see, really simply sketched
guardians, but they make
sure to have the names
and part of the
text that we find
on the most beautiful papyri.
We also went a bit
out of Berkeley
looking into minor collections,
Egyptian collections
in California.
So the Museum of
Man in San Diego
also had some
interesting coffins
with these kind of protective
figures, gods and demons.
In San Francisco, there
is a very interesting
Egyptian collection as
well, the so so-called Sutro
collections we are working on.
As you can see here, these
are very nice figures.
Also at a certain point,
there is a sort of name.
And so it's also a
snake guardian figure.
And let's see now if this works.
I'll show you.
OK, yes, it does.
So it's just the
website where you
can find the models
of the coffin we've
been working until now.
And you can download your
own 3D model at web at home
so you can navigate from
the different links.
So, for instance, if
you go to the coffin
then the 3D model is here.
Those 3D models are also
online on a website that
will be published soon
where we are working also
with annotations.
And so here, for instance, in
this one, what I want to do
is make sure that people
don't just look at the models,
but also understand
what is written on it.
So you have to learn
the spells and know
about all these demons.
And so a nice thing we can do
today with this model is indeed
adding annotations
and, for instance,
clicking on the text part and
see where exactly the text is,
have a translation,
transliteration
for students of Egyptology.
So it's here.
This is just an example.
Or knowing more about
the owner, find his name.
Where is his name?
So you can navigate the
model, at the same time,
looking at the
text that zoom in.
Sorry, I don't
have a mouse here.
It's a bit difficult.
Zoom in and zoom out
and see the details.
And even, you can
add the vocabulary.
So, for instance, where
is the word "to eat?"
Where is the pronoun?
It's very specific, maybe
not too interesting.
But I think those
annotations work very well
and help our study,
also, in general,
of the Egyptian religions.
And you can combine models, of
course, when you find ensembles
and kind of, well, have fun
with it by reconnecting them.
All right, so I think it's
time to conclude this lecture
with the last slides.
So to conclude I want
to quote a text which
is not a magical text.
It is actually a literary text
from a very interesting tale
of stories of
gods, gods fighting
between each other, Osiris
getting mad to the other gods
because they were not solving
this important case to decide
who is going to be the next--
well, it's a longer story.
But there was divine
tribunal having to decide
between Horus and Seth.
And so indeed this is
called "The Contendings
of Horus and Seth."
So Osiris get mad with the
other gods and say to the gods,
"Now you pay attention
to this matter!
The land in which I am is full
of savage-looking messengers
who fear no god or goddess.
If I send them out,
they will bring me
the heart of every evildoer,
and they will be here with me!"
So here it seems to me he is
speaking of not other gods,
of real demons.
Those are called messengers
also in other spells.
And their existence is
therefore proved also
in non-magical text.
And even those beliefs in
demons, in the protection
you need in the house,
in the nether world,
according to certain
manifestation
of gods and demons, is also
present in Egypt nowadays.
This is a photo
taken in modern times
in a village in
the south of Egypt
where there is a dead
gazelle and a lizard hung
from the window of a house.
And both gazelle
and lizards were
two of those animals
used in representations
of demons, protective demons,
but also the dangerous ones.
So it seems like the
beliefs in demons
and magic protection
from ancient Egypt
are still alive today.
And I thank you
for your attention.
[APPLAUSE]
