Demonic Beings in Ancient Egypt

According to the ancient Egyptian religious concepts, the world was inhabited by six groups of superhuman beings;         nTr (god),  nTrt (goddess), Ax (male spirit), Axt (female spirit),   nswt (King) and     nsyt (queen). These categories were first followed by the humans in the royal domain who were in turn followed by officials, foreigners and then finally by commoners. These groups which were included in Onomastikon of Amenimopet, were considered to be part of the ordered cosmos. As for demons, they were excluded from these groups; not because they were nonexistent, but rather because they were beings of chaos.  While, there is a collective term indicating the gods (nTrw) in ancient Egypt, which is the exact correspondent of the Greek „theos.‟ There is no collective term in the ancient Egyptian language that is equivalent to the English   word Demon,   which was   originally driven from the ancient Greek term „daimon‟ that does not have an equivalent counterpart in the ancient Egyptian groups of beings. Therefore, the Egyptological literature assigned this term „demon‟ to the study of these „minor divinities,‟ as a convention to fill the gap in the ancient Egyptian, which does not have a collective term for them.
The ancient Egyptians believed that they were surrounded by supernatural powers that affected their fate not only in the earthly life but also in their afterlife. These fate demons were benevolent protectors that played the role of their guardian angels from anything that threatened their course of life. However these protector demons were not always able to safeguard them against the evil ones. Therefore, demons, in fact, played an important role in the ancient Egyptian culture and are evident in both the textual and material archaeological remains.
This article will shed light on the nature of these beings, their categories, roles and iconography based on magical spells and funerary texts from the Middle Kingdom down till the New Kingdom.