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Demons (Benevolent and Malevolent) UCLA UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology Title Demons (benevolent and malevolent) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1r72q9vv Journal UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1) Author Lucarelli, Rita Publication Date 2010-09-01 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California DEMONS (BENEVOLENT AND MALEVOLENT) العفاريت (الطيبة والمؤذية) Rita Lucarelli EDITORS WILLEKE WENDRICH Editor-in-Chief University of California, Los Angeles JACCO DIELEMAN Editor Area Editor Religion University of California, Los Angeles ELIZABETH FROOD Editor University of Oxford JOHN BAINES Senior Editorial Consultant University of Oxford Short Citation: Lucarelli, 2010, Demons (benevolent and malevolent). UEE. Full Citation: Lucarelli, Rita, 2010, Demons (benevolent and malevolent). In Jacco Dieleman, Willeke Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0025fks3 1249 Version 1, September 2010 http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz0025fks3 DEMONS (BENEVOLENT AND MALEVOLENT) العفاريت (الطيبة والمؤذية) Rita Lucarelli Dämonen (wohlwollend und bösartig) Démons (bienveillant et malveillant) According to ancient Egyptian belief, the created world was populated by humans, spirits of deceased humans, deities, and a host of supernatural beings whose identities were never precisely defined. The Egyptian language refers to the first three categories as, respectively, rmT, Ax or mwt, and nTr, but lacks a proper term for the fourth class. Egyptians nonetheless recognized the existence of these beings, and we are therefore justified in studying them as an ontological category. Instead of defining “demons” as a uniform group, the Egyptians gave specific names and occasionally physical attributes to its individual classes and members. These names and associated iconography do not so much characterize what these demons are as identify what they do. From the perspective of humans, their behavior can be benevolent and malevolent. Two main classes of demons can be recognized: wanderers and guardians. Wandering demons travel between this world and the beyond acting as emissaries for deities or on their own accord. They can bring diseases, nightly terrors, and misfortune and are therefore basically malevolent. Guardian demons are tied to a specific locality, either in the beyond or on earth, and protect their locality from intrusion and pollution; as such, their function is rather benevolent. In the Late and Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, they came to be regarded as deities in their own right and received cult. اعتقد المصري القديم أن العالم يسكنه اﻹنسان، وأرواح المتوفيين، واﻵلھة، والكثير من الكائنات الﻻطبيعية التي لم يستخدم المصري القديم إسما محددا لھذا النوع من الكائنات، فأطلق المصري القديم على اﻹنسان كلمة << رمتش >> ، وعلى أرواح المتوفيين << موت>> أو << آخ >> ، وعلى اﻷلھة << نتشر >> ، ولكنه لم يطلق على الكائنات الﻻطبيعية تعريف واحد، ولكن إعتبر المصري القديم أن ھذه الكائنات حقيقية ولذلك يتم دراستھا وإدراجھا ضمن علم ما وراء الطبيعة. وعلى الرغم من أن المصري القديم لم يستخدم كلمة واحدة لوصف الكائنات الﻻطبيعية، إﻻ انه حدد أسماء عدة كائنات منھا، وأحياناً أوضح شكل بعضا منھا. ھذه اﻷسماء واﻹيقونية المتعلقة بھا ﻻ تحدد نوع ھذه العفاريت ولكن تحدد أدوارھا. رأى اﻹنسان أن ھذه العفاريت يمكن أن تكون طيبة أو مؤذية، فيمكن لنا تحديد نوعان من ھذه العفاريت: المتجولة والحارسة، فتجولت العديد من ھذه العفاريت ما بين ھذا العالم وما وراءه بوصفھا ممثلة لﻵلھة أو بمحض إرادتھم، ويمكن لھذه العفاريت المتجولة أن تجلب اﻷمراض، واﻻھوال ليﻻ، وسوء الحظ، وبالتالي ھي مؤذية. أما العفاريت الحارسة فھي مرتبطة بمكان محدد سواء بھذا العالم أو ما ورائه وتحمي منطقتھا من أي أذى وبھذا تكون العفاريت الحارسة طيبة. أصبحت تلك العفاريت بمثابة آلھة بالعصور المتأخرة والبطلمية والرومانية حيث أصبح لھم طائفاتھم الخاصة بھم. Demons (benevolent and malevolent), Lucarelli, UEE 2010 1 f all Egyptian religious concepts, deceased humans in the netherworld. They the notion of “demon” has always acquired their supernatural status only after a O been one of the most difficult to metaphysical transformation generated by interpret for modern scholars. The first death and ritual. While mwt beings are always difficulty lies in the fact that Egyptian malevolent, Ax spirits can be either benevolent terminology and iconography usually do not or malevolent. Demons, however, are entities distinguish ontologically between demon and in their own right. Nevertheless, demons and deity. In fact, no ancient Egyptian term exists spirits of the dead are often listed together in that would translate into “demon” and mark apotropaic spells, because both can be hostile an obvious distinction between deity (nTr) and to humans. demon. Nonetheless, the scribal habit to often Common understanding of the notion of write the names of inimical beings in red ink demon, following the Christian reception of and to add the evil or slain enemy the Greek term daimôn in Late Antiquity, sees determinative to their name shows that evil as the main essence of demonic entities as Egyptians recognized “malevolent demon” as opposed to the notion of angels (Ahn 1997). an ontological category in its own right. It is Ancient Egyptian religion also relates the only by comparing demons and deities with existence of demons to “evil”, which is respect to their function, appearance, and believed to be the realm of chaos outside the status in the created world that we can come created world (te Velde 1975: 980). However, to an appreciation of demons in ancient although this negative connotation cannot be Egyptian thought. denied in light of the magical texts, the role of The main difference between demon and demons vis-à-vis the human world remains deity seems to be that demons received no ambivalent and dependent on their specific cult, at least until the New Kingdom. Within context of appearance. In general, it can be the hierarchy of supernatural beings, demons stated that demons always act on the borders are subordinate to the gods; although they between order and chaos, maat and isfet. posses special powers, these powers are not Therefore, in order to define the ancient universal but rather limited in nature and Egyptian conception of demons, we may call scope. In general, their influence is them “religious frontier-striders” (Ahn 2006: circumscribed to one single task, and in 503), in reference to the apt German term certain cases they act under the command of a Grenzgängerkonzepte (Ahn 1997). Some demons deity. The available sources do not elaborate bring chaos into the ordered world or act on the origin of demons; nor are they upon the world of the living by command of explicitly mentioned in creation accounts. the divine (e.g., the “wanderers”), whereas However, as they often act as emissaries of others mediate between order and chaos or deities and are subjected to their will, we may the sacred and the profane by protecting deduce that demons are a creation of the liminal and sacred places on earth and in the gods. This hypothesis may find support in a netherworld from impurity (e.g., the formulation in one of the Oracular Amuletic “guardians”). In this sense, the Platonic Decrees, referring to protection against definition of daimôn as an “intermediate certain malevolent “gods who make a wrt- being” between gods and mortals (Plato, demon against a man” (Edwards 1960: T2 vs. Symposium, 202e) also fits the overall picture. 84 - 85: nTrw ntyw jr wrt r rmT; for wrt-demons, As regards their origin, locality, and forms see below). of appearance, their multifaceted character To be distinguished from demons are the and the general lack of uniform descriptions roaming dead (mwt) and disembodied spirits in the sources make it impossible to identify a (Ax). Although occasionally showing a single ontological category of demon. On the demonic nature, they are the manifestations of basis of nature and location, we can recognize Demons (benevolent and malevolent), Lucarelli, UEE 2010 2 two main classes of demons, which have Old Kingdom (xAtjw are mentioned in the similar appearance and behavior towards Pyramid Texts) until the Ptolemaic and humans: the wanderers and the guardians. Roman Periods. They are sent as death- and plague-carriers by furious goddesses like Classes of Demons Sakhmet and Bastet. At the end of the year, during the epagomenal days, their influence Demons can manifest themselves and act as a was considered especially strong on earth, as single individual but also appear in pairs, in attested in the Calendars of Good and Bad threes, or in a gang. A main distinction exists Days (Leitz 1994: 244 - 255). Starting in the between demons traveling between the earth New Kingdom, but especially in the temple and the beyond, so-called “wanderers”, and texts of the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods, those that are tied to, and watch over, a place, xAtjw can also be manifestations of the dead namely “guardians”. decans (von Lieven 2000: 46 - 50), whose Among the wanderers we find many gangs, stars were also seen as disease-bringers. In the often of unspecified number, which are Late Period and Ptolemaic and Roman controlled by major deities such as Ra and Periods, astrology gained prominence in Osiris and act as the executioner of their ancient Egyptian religious thought, and, as a divine will. They can be agents of punishment result, certain stars were demonized. For on earth and in the netherworld, like the instance, certain astral bodies of the northern wpwtjw, “the messengers”, which are constellations, depicted on the astronomical mentioned in magical and ritual texts from the ceilings of temples and tombs, find Middle Kingdom through the Ptolemaic and correspondences in the representations of the Roman Periods (Leitz 2002, Vol. 2: 364 - demonic inhabitants of the so-called “mounds 366). In other cases, they cause ineluctable (jAwt) of the netherworld” described in Spell misfortune to humans without orders from 149 of the Book of the Dead (von Lieven 2000: the gods. As such they are agents of chaos 16 - 17, 27 - 28).
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