October
15
/ 2024
The lives of ancient Egyptians were inextricably intertwined with magic. It was present in everything from religion to politics, and from birth to death. Magic was such a prevalent force that in the early third century AD, the Christian theologian and philosopher Titus Flavius Clemens, better known as Clement of Alexandria, declared that: “Egypt was the mother of magicians.” Up until the Roman period, Heka was the ancient Egyptian word for magic, but that word was not so clearly defined for the ancient Egyptians, and it could be seen as a force of nature which could also assimilate the attributes of a divine being in human form. As a being, Heka was believed to have been created by Atum at
