During the more than four thousand years that the ancient Egyptian civilization flourished, religion and magic came together as never before . . . nor, perhaps, since. Talismans, amulets, figures, pictures, spells, and formulæ were part and parcel of everyday life. Prayers were intermingled with magical spells, chants, and incantations to protect from the hostile and to encourage the affable. From the earliest pre-dynastic times, the Egyptians saw the whole earth, together with the underworld and the sky above, as home to innumerable invisible beings. Some of these were friendly but many were not. The purpose of the magic that was developed was to give humankind authority over these beings, yet this magic was of both positive and negative kinds. There was magic to benefit the living and the dead, but there was also magic to harm others.
There are numerous papyri containing formulæ for preparing medicine and drugs, such as the Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1500 b.c.e.), the Ebers Papyrus, the Hearst Papyrus, and others in both the British Museum and in Turin.2
Magic certainly played a major role in ancient Egyptian medicine. Despite preparing bodies for embalming (in a formalized, basic operation that never varied), they had little understanding of human anatomy and, hence, little ability to diagnose. The medical panacea to evict evil spirits was magic.
Much, if not most, of ancient Egyptian magic was guided by astrology. Many of the papyri exhort the operator to perform the ritual on a certain day and to avoid days that were thought to be hostile to the act. From these extant writings it is known that the year of the Egyptian calendar was made up of 365 days. Each of those days was divided into three parts, one or two of which were considered lucky or unlucky.
The word hieroglyph, from the Greek, means “sacred carvings,” and is the word used to describe the numerous carvings and paintings on the walls of the tombs and temples. The Egyptians called these hieroglyphs “the speech of the gods.” The symbols themselves were thought to have magical powers. The earliest examples of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, unlike the picture writing of Native Americans and Eskimos, were made up entirely of pictures that had phonetic values. For example, the horned viper picture became the letter f, the cobra the letter g, a hand the letter d, and an owl the letter m. Words were composed by putting together different combinations of symbols. Hieroglyphs were first used about seven thousand years ago and continued in use until about 400 c.e.
It became standard to use certain hieroglyphs by themselves as amulets and talismans. The best known is probably the ankh, meaning “life.” Others were the tet column (“stability”), the Eye of Horus (“soundness/wholeness”), and sa (“protection”).
Most hieroglyphics were colored. Traditional colors were blue for the sky and all celestial objects; red for a human male; yellow or pink-brown for a female; and animals, birds, and reptiles in their natural colors, so far as possible. The “writing” followed a variety of forms. Some hieroglyphics were read from left to right, and some from right to left; some were written in vertical columns, and some in horizontal lines. On either side of a door, for example, the writing would go down each side and would be read from top to bottom. The figures on each side would face in toward each other. In other words, any figures on the left of the door would face to the right, while figures on the right of the door would face to the left. Similarly, the figures on a horizontal line faced the reader. That is, if the figures face to the left, then the writing is read from left to right; if the figures face to the right, then the writing is read from right to left. This is why you may see examples of individual hieroglyphs facing in opposite directions.
There are a tremendous number of hieroglyphs and it is not possible to show them all in a book of this size.3 Here are the most common ones, including the Egyptian alphabet and some of the determinatives.
Egyptian Alphabet
A
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Å
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A
I
Egyptian Alphabet (continued)
U
B
P
F
M
N
R
L
H
H
KH
S
Egyptian Alphabet (continued)
SH
K
Q
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K
T
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T
TH
TCH
Determinatives
God; Divine Being
Goddess
Man
Woman
Tree
Plant; Flower
Earth; Land
Road; to travel
Foreign Land
Foreigner
Determinatives (continued)
To call or beckon
To eat; to think; to speak;
whatever done with the mouth
Inertness; Idleness
Water
House
Animal
Bird
Fish
To cut; to slay
To cook; burn; fire
Determinatives (continued)
Smell
To overthrow
Strength
To walk; to stand; actions performed with legs
Flesh
Little; Bad; Evil
Rain; Storm
Day; Time
Village; Town; City
Stone
Determinatives (continued)
Metal
Grain
Wood
Wind; Air
Liquid
Crowd
Children
Beard
Right Eye
Left Eye
Determinatives (continued)
To see; to look
Right Eye of Ra
Ear
Opening; Mouth; Door
Breast
To embrace
Hand and Arm; to give
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Hand
To go; to walk; to stand
Serpent; Body
Determinatives (continued)
Worm
Feather
Staircase; to go up
Tet (stability)
Ankh (life)
Magical knot
Rope
Cartouches
For the names of royalty and of deities, the letters are placed in a rectangular frame known as a cartouche (so called because it resembles a cartridge). For example, the cartouches for Hatshepset and for Thothmes III would be as follows:
Hatshepset Thothmes III