Myth and Magic in Ancient Egypt

Myth and magic were always linked throughout the history of ancient Egypt. The majority of the myths associated with ancient Egypt involve the pantheon of gods that the people truly believed existed. The myths and stories were still being told when the Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt at some time around 450BCE, even though they first appeared written in ancient hieroglyphs in the tomb of the first pharaoh Menes in 3200BCE.

The stories of magic are contained in the written literature of ancient Egypt and are generally intertwined with the myths of the gods. The Egyptians used magic to harness the natural laws and forces of the universe to promote their own personal end. The magic started with the gods who were considered to be the workers of wonder.

So by believing in the myths of the gods and their activities, the ancient Egyptians embraced the divine magic to improve their lives and their Afterlife when it came. The aim was to gain the ability to command their deities to appear when they desired them to and then to work for them. This was thought to be achieved when:

• A priest-magician incanted a specific set of words.
• A certain precious stone was carried on the person.
• A precise word or sentence was written on papyrus.

Another way that was very popular was to charge a small figure or image of the god you wished to invoke with magical power, by means of an oral rite recited over the figure to ensure the magic would be effective. In this way you could make certain that you benefited from the luck of the mythical god you had specifically summoned.

So for example, pregnant women who were due to give birth would summon the hippopotamus goddess Taweret, who provided protection during pregnancy and labour. This would have been done either by channelling the power of the goddess into a clay figure of a hippopotamus, or by drawing a hippopotamus on the pregnant woman’s hand that she then licked off!

Nearly everything in ancient Egypt revolved around the mythological gods, and so anything that an individual could do to win their favour was done without hesitation. They obviously believed that magic rituals and incantations could get the attention of the gods because the Book of the Dead contains hundreds of magical verses that could be copied to your tomb walls if you were wealthy enough to have a tomb, or on to a bit of papyrus that was buried with you if you weren’t wealthy. The chosen verses would help you to pass the tests of the gods and gain entrance to the mythological Afterlife that every single Egyptian believed in.

Even when the line of Egyptian pharaohs came to an end, the people still believed that they had to be mummified and buried properly with magic incantations and rituals in order to make it to the Afterlife and the realm of their mythical gods.

Egyptian magic and mythology was rooted in the complete reliance of the Egyptian people on the waters of the River Nile and on the sun. The stories and legends are still alive, and the practice of magic to invoke the gods is still relevant today.