SUMMA DÆMONICA BIBLIOGRAFIA

LUCARELLI 2010 1SDB2019

Rita Lucarelli 

„Demons (benevolent and malevolent)”, în

UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology

Jacco Dieleman, Willeke Wendrich(eds.).

Los Angeles, 2010, pp. 1-10. (pdf.)

Abstract:

According to ancient Egyptian belief, the created world was populated by humans, spirits ofdeceased humans, deities, and a host of supernatural beings whose identities were neverprecisely 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 recognizedthe existence of these beings, and we are therefore justified in studying them as an ontologicalcategory. Instead of defining “demons” as a uniform group, the Egyptians gave specific namesand occasionally physical attributes to its individual classes and members. These names andassociated iconography do not so much characterize what these demons are as identify whatthey 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 demonstravel 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 theirlocality from intrusion and pollution; as such, their function is rather benevolent. In the Late andPtolemaic and Roman Periods, they came to be regarded as deities in their own right and receivedcult.