The Magicians of Ancient Egypt: Teachers, Seers and Court Wizards

Abstract

In our own modern day, magicians are stage and street performers or characters in fiction but for the Egyptians, they were seen as authentic practitioners of an art. For years, magic and the magicians who practiced it were hunted and persecuted by the major religions of the world but in Egypt, magic and magicians were everyday occurrences and valued members of society respectively. In short, the Egyptians had an incredibly different view of magic and those who wielded it than any society currently living today. This alone is worthy of investigation. To discover the ancient Egyptian reception to magicians, the investigation must come from several angles. Archaeological evidence is the first step to understanding the magicians by what they have left behind. Immediately this means the Ramesseum 1kAy and Prince Khaemwaset but there are others to be found in Egypt’s archaeological record. However, the due to the problems with archaeology, and in particular with Egyptian archaeology, this can only give us a limited view of the magicians. The information brought to us by archaeology must be bolstered by the information we can gather from historical sources and literary tales. While these carry their own problems of bias and fictional intent respectively, between all three categories of information available, it s is hoped the clearest picture possible can be attained. This allows for the exploration of the magicians found within the Westcar Papyrus and other notable Egyptian tales but also the literary side to the aforementioned Prince Khaemwaset, one of the few individuals from Egypt who was remembered in his own life as a magician and as a magical literary character. This same approach will apply when magicians are sought from the Graeco-Roman era of Egypt. While a more comprehensive understanding of the magicians of ancient Egypt will be gained from a full reading of this study, that Egypt revered her magicians and the magic they wielded can not be in dispute as they fulfilled a vital function in their society, their literature and in the later cultures that ruled Egypt.