Magic in ancient egypt

M A G I C IN ANCIENT EGYPT Deir el-Medina were also scorpion charmers (fig. 26). The same skills were used against snakes. The scorpion charmer's role was the prevention and cure of all kinds of stings and bites. Many surviving spells relate to this problem (see further Chapter Ten). In some cases, the title may merely indicate that the holder had general magical knowledge.

In Egyptian religion, snakes and scorpions can symbolize the forces of chaos, but they were a genuine hazard of everyday life. Snakes were a particular problem in the fields at harvest-time. Scorpions lurking under rocks were a danger to stone-cutters and builders. Expeditions that went from Egypt to the turquoise mines in Sinai included scorpion charmers among their personnel. In modern Egypt, families of scorpion charmers can still be employed to clear an area of venomous reptiles and insects.

Expeditions to Sinai in the early second millennium BC might also include men with the title of sau. Sau is formed from the Egyptian verb sa 'to protect'. 'Sau of the King of Lower Egypt' are included in the procession of wise men at Bubastis. A sau might practise medicine, but such people were primarily makers of protective charms. The term is sometimes translated as 'amulet man'. It included both those who made protective objects such as amulets, and those who used spoken or written charms. 'Amulet men of Serqet' presumably specialized in anti-venom charms.

Titles such as magician, scorpion charmer, Sekhmet priest and amulet man often seem to be used interchangeably. One man might hold several of these tides. Sau is distinctive in that it can be used of women as well as men. Midwives and nurses 'made protection' for pregnant women and young children. A wooden figurine found in a seventeenth century BC tomb probably shows a female sau. She wears a lion-demon mask and holds snake wands (fig. 27; see Chapter Nine).

The texts that survive from ancient Egypt were mainly written for and about the male elite. Information about women's magic is harder to come by. A few personal letters from the late second millennium BC preserve references to women who were called rekhet— 'knowing one'.5 These wise women were consulted as seers who could get in touch with the dead. A magical text of the late first millennium BC features a wise woman who is able to diagnose what is wrong with a sick child (see Chapter Ten). The idea seems to be that the woman can sense which evil spirit or deity is responsible. These wise women may have taken on the role of 'seer' after their childbearing years were over.

There may have been an equivalent office in some temples. At the temple of Cusae (Meir), the goddess Hathor was worshipped in her sevenfold form. The Seven Hathors were thought to visit every child on the seventh night after its birth to declare what its fate would be in life.

One text refers to seven old women serving in this temple.6 It is possible that they were consulted as seers who could foretell a person's fate.

Very little is known about whether priestesses participated in ritual magic in temples. Literacy, which was much less common in women than in men, may have formed one obstacle. Another was the requirement of ritual purity. Sexual intercourse with a woman was thought to 56