He appears surrounded by knives and scorpions, possibly as protection for a tomb or temple. Known as “the one who keeps enemies at a distance,” Tutu was a sphinx-like protective god with a human head, lion body, bird wings, and a snake for a tail. Thus, from birth until death, magic touched all stages of human life. It even lay at the root of many funerary practices. It was a source of protection a means for healing a method for ensuring success in business, love, and reproduction and a platform for predicting the uncertain future. Magic, often overlapping with what today might be considered science or religion, was a resource for mediating one’s interaction with society and the world. Surviving literature and archaeological remains from ancient societies surrounding the Mediterranean, including those of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, and Rome, reveal the extent to which magic pervaded most aspects of life in antiquity. Yet in the ancient world, magic was not only a perceived reality, but was also accessible to many people. To the modern mind, the word “magic” likely conjures up images of Hogwarts and other fantastical and exclusive realms. Both demons were among a number of apotropaic images that warded off evil. The striations around the face of this demon are either the entrails of an enemy, worn by Humbaba, or the whiskers of Pazuzu’s lion-like face. Professors Robert Ousterhout and Grant Frame, curators of Magic in the Ancient World Protective figurine of Humbaba or Pazuzu. This exhibition features objects from the Museum’s rich collections of the Near East, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Mediterranean sections. The exhibition Magic in the Ancient World, now at the Penn Museum, illuminates how different cultures used magic as a way of managing or understanding the present, controlling supernatural agencies, and seeing the future. Using magical acts, they attempted to control supernatural powers- gods, demons, spirits, or ghosts-to accomplish something beyond the scope of human capabilities. In ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, practitioners of magic exploited symbolic words, images, and rituals to achieve desired outcomes through supernatural means.
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