Decapitating Demons May Be the Oldest Fearsome Entities of Ancient Egypt.Nine Notorious Demons that Terrorized the Ancient World.The meaning of Zar is uncertain but is likely from a north African language transplanted into Arabic as a loan word meaning “to visit” or “a visitation”. Here demons are discussed alongside an Egyptian exorcism cult known as “Zar”. My first exploration of the role of the demon in Egyptian magic was published in my book, Supernatural Assault in Ancient Egypt.

For instance, the terrifying Pazuzu as seen in the first few frames of the horror movie The Exorcist.īronze statuette of Pazuzu, circa 800 BC – 700 BC. Monsters first make an appearance much later after the invention of writing, and are usually human-headed but with an animal’s body. Perhaps because this could also be a human wearing an animal mask, we call them demons rather than monsters. These entities have human bodies but with an animal head, the so-called “goat demon” being one of the earliest.

Historically, the existence of something recognizable as demonic is first recorded even before written records, in images from Ice Age rock art. Swansea University hosts a Demon Things database, established in 2016, and for budgetary reasons has a restricted timeline of 2000-1000 BC - but already it has thousands of entries.Įgyptian scene with demons. When it comes to the old Egypt, the study of these supernatural entities is still in its infancy. There is a clear continuity for these entities through time. They also have an ongoing existence after the pharaonic culture, the end of Paganism, the rise of Christianity, the coming of Islam, and even into our own modern era. Many of these entities fall into a category of supernatural beings known as demons or daemons.

Most of us are familiar with the images of the deities, kings and queens of Egypt but for every one of the famous scenes reproduced from those times, smaller, more obscure supernatural figures are far more numerous.

Kemetic words of power