Welcome to Demon Things!
Demon Things is an ancient Egyptian demonology project about the imaginal realm of ancient Egyptian supernatural beings. This website serves as a portal for the subject of liminal entities in ancient Egypt from its earliest times (Predynastic ca. 3500 BCE) to the Byzantine Period (ca. 400 CE).
The word “demon” is used here as a popular reference to the liminal entities from the ancient Egyptian worldview that generally fall outside modern categorizing as a major deity. Unlike the well-known and better attested major deities, these liminal entities generally did not have temples of their own dedicated to them, and they are often found at the margins of primary source evidence. The term “demon” here is a blanket term for those ghosts, guardians, monsters, and other supernatural entities (both hostile and beneficial) that hovered between the categories of god, man, and king. In both the modern and ancient world, demonic entities embody and are blamed for a host of physical and psychological afflictions, while helpful entities are called upon to aid the sufferer. These beings are known in many cultures by a multitude of names. A sample of the more recognizable includes: gremlins, imps, faeries, ghosts, daemons, genies, Mischwesen, goblins, pixies, sprites, gnomes, pucks, sirens, fay, enchanters, fiends, monsters, and even angels
In ancient Egypt, liminal entities were described in texts and imagery. For ordinary people, they played vital roles as mechanisms for coping with and manifesting abstract stresses, afflictions, fears, hopes, and desires, with the entities regularly acting as healers or armed defenders. The main aim of this project is to explore and illuminate this less-visible side of Ancient Egyptian life. While much is known about temple religions and gods of Ancient Egypt, this other side of Egyptian religion remains opaque. Through the surviving rituals and paraphernalia we created a DemonBase and interactive portal for the public to learn about these entities.
