This is a fragment of a magic wand on loan to us from the British Museum. British
Museum EA38192 is16cm
long, and made from a hippopotamus tooth.
In the Middle
Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period (2055–1550 BC) these mysterious ‘apotropaic
wands’ appear. Around 150 are known in museums around the world. It is possible that these continued into
the New Kingdom as they are depicted in New Kingdom tombs, for example that of Rekhmire (Roberson 2009, footnote 66).
These things are usually made of hippopotamus canine teeth, split in half to produce two
curved wands with one side convex and the other flat. Hippopotamus tooth is incredibly hard so this would have been difficult to make. So hard in fact that a 2006 television documentary ('The Darkside of the Hippos' broadcast on Channel Five on 31.5.2006) stated that the tusk could reputedly stop bullets. The material possibly
invoked Taweret a hippopotamus goddess of childbirth. It is possible that
hippopotamus ivory was considered important because of the power, strength and
mothering qualities of the female hippo.
Although the
whole is usually carefully carved and polished, with well executed animal heads
forming the ends of more complete examples; the mythical creatures depicted
thereon appear much more roughly engraved. Perhaps this shows that the making
of the complete, but un-engraved wands, was carried out by one group of skilled people
and the engravings of the animals by another less skilled group. However, not
all wands depict roughly executed animals. A fragment of a wand from the Berlin Museum (9611) was described by Adolf Erman as ‘the finest ivory working I
have ever seen’. It has a beautifully
executed toad and jackal standard in raised relief (Oppenheim et al. 2015: 200–201
with references).
The
engravings upon such wands depict deities associated with the protection of
young infants and with childbirth, for example the frog goddess Hekat, Taweret
and Bes. This broken wand from the British
Museum has an image of a
frog deity holding a knife blade in its foot. On other knives too, deities
often carry protective knives or snakes. The inscriptions also bear witness to
the fact that these ‘wands’ are intended to be protective, e.g. ‘Cut off the
head of the enemy when he enters the chamber of the children whom the lady…has
borne’ and ‘Protection by night, protection by day’ (Steindorff 1946, 50).
The series of
mythical animals on wands like this often all face the same way as though in a
procession. However, in this one, as in a few other examples (e.g. Louvre 3614
published in Oppenheim, et al. 2015: 200), there appear to be two ‘processions’
facing one another.
On British
Museum EA38192, the image on the far left on the wand appears to be a snake.
Only its head is shown. In front of the snake is a mythical creature, a
serpent-necked feline with spotted coat (these are sometimes called ‘serpopards’).
The serpotard appears to have been a Sumerian motif introduced into Egypt in
the Naqada II Period. Such creatures appear on other apotropaic wands, e.g. an
example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA 22.1.154, in Hayes 1953 vol. 2,
fig. 159) and Walters Art Gallery 71.510 (Capel and Markoe 1996, 64). They also
appear on the faience feeding cup also on the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
though here without spots (MMA 44.4.4). Since such items seem to occur with
other apotropaic creatures, and at least one is shown with the sa-sign for protection on its back
(Walters Art Gallery 71.510), it is assumed that the serpent-necked feline is
also apotropaic.
In front of the
serpopard is a seated ape holding a wedjat eye. It faces a standard with a
canine head atop. The canine head, on, or as part of a standard, represents wsr, the sign for power and also appears
on Walters Art Gallery apotropaic wand 71.510, The Waters example, however is
not so clearly depicted as a standard but rather as a canine head with legs. In
both the Walters example and the British Museum example here, the sign holds a
knife.
The Walters
Art Gallery Example example, also shows a sun-disk with legs, which can be seen
as the figure on the furthest right on the British Museum wand.
At the far
right are a series of parallel lines. Often such wands have an animal head at
one or both ends.
Inscriptions
also usually name the mother and the child. The child is invariably a boy.
There could be several reasons for this. The first might be that these items
were only made for boys. The second might be that as most of the tombs in which
the wands were found belonged to men, most of the wands belonged to men, but
this does not mean that girls did not have them in life. The preponderance of
male names may also be a result of putting names on tusks before the birth of
the child and indicate that male children were usually hoped for (Szpakowska
2008, 30). But, the fact that these items were repaired and spells thereon
suggest several children it seems likely that these were used for girl as well
as boy babies.
Egyptologists
usually claim these wands were used to protect women in childbirth or young
children, though most have been found in tombs. The fact that the points of
some wands are worn away on one side has suggested to some that they were used
to draw a magic circle around the child (Hayes 1953,
249). Some examples have perforations at each end with a cord running
through perhaps to carry or move other objects (Teeter and Johnson 2009, 77).
On tomb walls wands are shown being carried by nurses (Robins 1993, 87) but
here their presence shows that they had a secondary function of protecting the
deceased at the time of their rebirth.
This
item is published in:
Altenmüller,
H. 1983. Ein Zaubermesser aus Tübingen, In Welt
des Orient 14, 30-45
Goodridge,
Wendy and Williams, Stuart 2006. Offerings
from the British Museum,
Swansea.
References
and further reading
Altenmüller, H. 1965. Die Apotropaia und die Götter Mittelägyptens
: eine typologische und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der sogenannten
"Zaubermesser" des Mittleren Reichs. Munich.
Altenmüller, H. 1983. Ein Zaubermesser
aus Tübingen, In Welt des Orient 14,
30-45.
Capel, A.K. and Markoe, G. (eds.) 1996. Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven.
Women in Ancient Egypt. New York: Cincinnati Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum.
Hayes, W.C. 1953. The Sceptre of Egypt.
A background for the study of Egyptian antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. Volume I. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Oppenheim, A., Arnold, D., Arnold D.
and Yamamoto, K. 2015. Ancient Egypt
Transformed. The Middle Kingdom. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York.
Roberson, J. 2009. The Early History
of ‘New Kingdom’ Netherworld iconography: A Late Middle Kingdom Apotropaic Wand
Reconsidered. In eds. Silverman, D.P.,
Simpson, W.K. and Wegner, J. (eds.) Archaism and Innovation: Studies in the
Culture of Middle Kingdom Egypt. New Haven, and Philadelphia, 427–445.
Robins, G. 1993. Women in Ancient Egypt.
London: British Museum
Press.
Szpakowska, K. 2008. Daily Life in Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Steindorff, G. 1946. The magical
knives of ancient Egypt.
Journal of the Walters Art
Gallery, 9, 41-51; 106-107.
Teeter, E. and Johnson, J.H. 2009. The Llife of Meresamun. A Temple Singer
in Ancient Egypt.
Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
