Ritual curse in Egypt during prehistoric and early dynastic Periods

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor (Prehistoric Archeology), Department of Egyptology, Faculty of Archeology - Aswan University (EGYPT)

Abstract

The curse in this article is intended to obtain a person kind of punishment or abuse, or by doing some rituals to Cursing a specific person, whether through some burial customs, or by breaking a statue of a specific person, or erase his name, or insert a blade or bone into his clay figurine, or separate his body parts, or remove his skull after death, or to be buried in a certain way that prevents him from leaving the tomb to prevent his evil soul, as if to be buried bound as a prisoner, or by placing some stone blocks over his body in his burial.
The curse rituals were also illustrated by acting some practices with magical significance; For example, if a statue is formed in the form of a certain person, whether from clay or wax at times, and deliberately distorting or destroying the statue in order to make him sick or destroy his owner, he will be punished with a symbolic curse in order to exterminate him ,destroy him or harm him.
The practices of the curse rituals are clarified religiously, by performing the burial ritual of donkeys, as they are one of the symbols of the "Seth", And by eliminating them, evil will be eliminated and annihilated.
The article will study these items in Egypt during prehistoric and early dynastic periods, explaining the similarities and differences between these elements at the time.

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Main Subjects

References

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