ANCR-501 Lessons

There is no sign of Professor Wessex in the minutes between the arrival of the first students and the start of class. However, upon inspection, a sleek quill at the front of the room occasionally scratches something onto a bit of parchment, most often when a student enters the room. With only a minute left before class is due to start, some students begin looking around uncertainly, chatting to their classmates, only to be interrupted by the loud creak of the door.

Professor Wessex strides evenly, without haste, down the center aisle of the room, the click of her polished heels sounding abnormally loud. When she reaches her oaken desk at the front, she spares a brief glance for the parchment and, apparently finding everything in order, nods before turning to the class and calmly launching into the lesson.

Explanation of Agenda
Good morning, students. The third lesson this year is devoted to examining the details unique to ancient hieroglyphs and their magic. These differences will help you in understanding the limitations and benefits of hieroglyphic magic and prepare you for the more practical lessons that await you in the future. As hieroglyphic scripts developed in a culture very different from the lands that espoused the various Futharks, there are many important differences we need to cover. Another factor that adds to the dissimilarities becomes obvious when you look at a timeline of ancient scripts and languages. The first hieroglyphs existed roughly 3,000 years before the first runes were created and, as we know from our lecture last class, this implies that there are significant differences in sophistication, implementation, and intent of the two scripts and their magic. This does not mean you should throw out everything you know about runic magic as useless, as last week I pointed out the majority of helpful parallels that exist between the two. These still serve as an acceptable foundation of knowledge upon which we are going to build. However, you may consider your goal today to discard many of your potential presuppositions about hieroglyphics.

Adding It All Up
One of the first things to note about differences between ancient runes and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics is that runic spells, or even general texts, were only made up of a handful of symbols. Each Futhark had a different number of symbols, but all three of the scripts were similar enough to our own Latin alphabet as far as the number of symbols was concerned. Hieroglyphics are another story entirely. At the start of their use -- circa. 3,300 B.C.E.-- and for the majority of the duration of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, there were around 700 glyphs in common use-- a far cry from the Elder Futhark’s 24. Moreover, by the end of the Graeco-Roman occupation of Egypt (and what is known in this area of the world as the Graeco-Roman period) there were over 5,000 symbols total. This large variety of glyphs means that navigating hieroglyphic texts is a much thornier task than their runic counterparts.

Divinatory Use
Another large difference between the Futharks and hieroglyphics is their use in divination. As you are aware from reading the Rune Dictionary, not only do runes have a phonetic meaning, a mundane meaning and magical meaning, but each rune also has a handful of divinatory interpretations which can be applied. Secondarily, the use of runes in divination is a highly-studied subject and a fair bit of literature has been published on the subject. Fortunately for you, while hieroglyphs do have phonetic, determinative, mundane, and magical meanings of their own, the ancient Egyptians did not choose to multiply the number of meanings any further. Because of this, your burden is considerably less than it could be; there is no need to skim through divinatory textbooks to ascertain what additional meanings might help you in translation. In ancient Egypt, hieroglyphics were never used for divination; people from this time opted to use such other systems as haruspex, astrology, and lampadomancy, to name a few. 

As I have mentioned, understanding a script is heavily tied into understanding its culture. Therefore, I invite you to ask Professor Proctor about some  of these practices. Perhaps you have even studied some of these already.

Spellwork and Hieroglyphics
One very large thing that sets hieroglyphics apart from their runic equivalents is their use in enchantments. As we well know, both scripts were used to create spells in a number of ways, but there are a few unique characteristics to Egyptian hieroglyphic-based magic. As we will discuss later on when looking at such assorted texts as the Book of the Dead, the Coffin Texts, and the Pyramid Texts, spells from these books (of which there are thousands) can span entire pages. In fact, it is not atypical for the individual spells listed to consist of 500 glyphs or more. As you will see in our brief example at the end of class today, these spells are wholly different from the modern enchantments we know today, and for good reason; a 500-syllable Warming Charm, for example, would be largely impractical to cast orally. Therefore, due to the fact that using 500 glyphs creates spells that are cumbersome even for written magic, most hieroglyphic spells are not completely magical.

No, you did not mishear me. There are two “levels” to most hieroglyphic spells¹. One exists at the phonetic level and describes exactly what the spell says. You will see an example of what I mean in a few moments and you will notice that the majority of this level of the spell is simply born of ritual and has ties to religion, as Professor Morgan noted last class. Large portions of spells involved calling on, appeasing or making demands of various higher powers in artistic language. It is the second level we are more often concerned with. This level deals with ideographic meanings. Most spells only have a handful of purely magical glyphs, or glyphs that have been imbued with magic.

I want to stress that the phonetic level is not completely unimportant. It too can provide useful clues or insight as to what the spell does. Some researchers are looking for evidence that the highly ritual nature and enormous length does actually contribute to the overall effects of the spell in ways that we do not yet understand -- after all, ancient Egyptian magic achieved a far higher level of potency than the majority of modern magic. Unfortunately, no conclusive findings have yet been discovered. This differentiation between magical glyphs and the phonetic level of the spell largely related to religion and/or superstition is a complex idea, but the basics of the idea-- that magic and religion are separate entities that often intertwine-- can be found in Lesson One of Ancient Studies 301

Cultural Contrast
Lastly, though we did briefly touch on this difference above, the subject of ritual and superstition bear mentioning in their own section. As you will know if you have taken Professor Morgan’s Mythology class, ritual was a powerful thing in ancient Egypt. Numerous, complex rituals were the ways in which the ancient Egyptians worshipped the various pantheons of gods in their different regions. They were certainly not the first, only, or last civilization, ancient or otherwise, to involve rituals and worship in their magic, but these two elements are so highly emphasized in their magical practices as to clearly differentiate hieroglyphic magic from other types of script-based magic.

Putting It All Together: Practical Example
And now, it is time for your first look at an ancient Egyptian spell. We will be looking at an example from the Coffin Texts, translated to English so you can actually understand it. Before we do so, though, I must impress upon you that you should expect to not understand, perhaps even to feel overwhelmed. If you are able to parse out what the actual magical intent and effect of this spell was just by looking at the phonetic transcription, you should know you are exceptional.  We have, at this juncture, only covered the basics of hieroglyphic magic. Should you go on to be a curse-breaker or a magianthroplogist-- particularly with a linguistic focus-- this would be something you study to do and a skill you improve with practice and experience. As I have repeatedly conveyed, ancient Egyptian magic is something that, at first glance, appears almost entirely foreign and unrecognizable if you have not had the experience with or exposure to magic other than our modern, European variant. Even your knowledge of and familiarity with ancient runes is only minimally helpful when trying to put a spell like this into context for the first time. However, it is well past time you see an example of what we have been discussing and have a concrete representation of the abstract concepts you’ve been learning.

As the professor finishes speaking, multiple parchments bearing the title “A Spell from the Coffin Texts” appear on each table. There is a moment of shifting as students move the witch light lamp at the center of their table.

Closing
When you are finished reading the text, you are free to leave. You may discuss it with members at your table or reflect on it individually, as you prefer.  Your assignments today are available to you now. While working on the first essay of the term, please note that you are expected to refer to this spell while writing, so do not discard this paper as you leave. Lastly, if you encounter any questions about the class and its various assignments, whether now or in the future, contact myself or my Head Girl, Isabel Rhodesse. I begin to tire of repeating this, and I think it has sufficiently sunk in, so this will be the last time I do so.

Footnotes:

1. Every now and again, magiarchaeologists run across a spell that appears to be completely non-magical. Though, some argue that the magic has been interfered with via damage or is, in some way, subtle enough to not be noticed. Additionally, and slightly more frequently, there exist a few instances of purely magical spells, though they are usually much shorter and not the norm.

Original lesson written by Professor Venita Wessex
Image credit: http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/wsrp/information/REL499_2011/Coffin%20Texts.pdf