thatlittleegyptologist:

rudjedet:

thatlittleegyptologist:

starsandepithets:

thatlittleegyptologist:

tenkohime replied to your post:
How would “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” be in Middle…

Bubba Hotep was wrong. Why was that the first thing I thought? XD

I had to google what that was. It’s not to say that the Egyptians didn’t have blood drinking demons, it’s just that they’re in the Book of Caverns and they don’t have names. We just call them demons because they look and act like what we expect our notion of ‘demon’ to be. This is why I couldn’t give a word for them because there simply isn’t one and demon is too set in pseudo-christian language to be culturally right.

I think demon would be the correct term, at least if you’re talking about non-god, non-human entities. If only because that’s what the Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project calls them.

☀️ http://www.demonthings.com

For want of a better word, yes. But since the Egyptians do not have a word for them I’m reluctant to call them such due to the modern connotations of the word. We cannot say that the Egyptians would have identified them in the same way we do and forcing a concept onto an entity we cannot fully comprehend is usually considered bad practice. The demonology project calls them that because there isn’t a better word and they need to appeal to non Egyptologists. Most of the time they’re entities in the underworld, but that doesn’t make for a cool project title does it?

To add to what Lottie said, another issue is that the ancient Egyptian “demons” can also be benevolent. So while demon is a good term to appeal to laypeople, it definitely isn’t the correct term to be using culturally. If anything, we might be better off using the early Greek daimon instead. But again this has it’s problems, not in the least because most people will just think it’s a fancy way to write demon. 

^^ this

Underworld entities are primarily not malevolent, unless you’re in very specific circumstances. The Egyptians differentiate between the two in art but not in words. There are no words for either. Hence why I say the modern understanding of demon would mischaracterise a vast number of them.