The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice.

• Author: Bianchi, Robert Steven

This volume is a significant revisionist approach to ancient Egyptian magic. As a result of a methodical analysis of both the textual and archaeological records, Ritner concludes that the boundaries between ancient Egyptian magic, religion, and medicine were not as strictly observed in ancient Egypt as modern commentators believe. Furthermore, he categorically denies the frequent attempts of moderns to define ancient Egyptian magic as a phenomenon dealing with the supernatural, practiced primarily for nefarious purposes sub rosa by individuals outside of the religious mainstream. His perceptive discussion of the unsuccessful harem conspiracy against Rameses III (Dynasty XX) is here extremely relevant, because he demonstrates that the crime was not the use of magic per se, but rather an assassination attempt against the person of pharaoh, whose perpetrators included a magician.

Ritner defines an ancient Egyptian magician as a member of that one percent of the Egyptian population - its elite - who, as a lector priest, had access to the written works found in the temple scriptorium, or house of life. One is, therefore, forced to reconsider the oft-repeated comment that blacks were the consummate magicians in ancient Egypt (Bresciani 1990, 241 et passim). Indeed, Ritner demonstrates that neither foreigners nor the masses could conjure.

Ritner convincingly argues that ancient Egyptian magic was comprised of three interlocking components: a quality or property to be possessed; an activity or rite to be performed; and a word, or spell to be spoken. These characteristics are "amoral," inherently neither beneficial nor malevolent, neither helpful nor harmful. This inherently ambivalent nature of Egyptian magic can be manipulated by the magician, and it is that manipulation which causes magic to produce good or ill.

In addition to such broad, sweeping generalizations, Ritner focuses his attention on several rituals. His discussion of the ritual breaking of red pots is instructive, but his insistence upon regarding the red hair of certain individuals as a "physical defect," because of the Sethian connotations of that color, may require modification in light of the frequency of private names meaning "the red" (Wagner 1988, 241-42), particularly among the necrotaphs of the Oasis of Kysis. His reconstruction of the Middle Kingdom deposit found at the site of Mirgissa suggests the existence of human sacrifice, specifically that of a black person, effected...