Bonner, SMA – PDF, 164.

ερβηθ, πακερβηθ. These words seem to belong particularly to invocations of Set or Typhon, although they are sometimes, as in the Oslo magical papyrus, associated with images that cannot be identified with Set unless, as has been suggested before, this association marks the very extreme of late syncretism, fusing together demons of darkness and evil with divinities of light.⁴⁰ It is natural to assume that the inscription of this face is addressed to the figure above it, and to consider the monster a grotesque and unusual representation of Set. Yet we have elsewhere, in an undoubtedly Typhonic context, a very different representation of this god which agrees closely, as we should expect, with the type of Set shown in late dynastic art, a normal human body with the head and neck of an ass, wearing the usual Egyptian apron.⁴¹ On the whole, the reasonable conclusion is that on the British Museum amulet, as in certain passages of the Oslo papyrus, epithets belonging to Set have been applied, merely as words of power, to figures which do not represent the god, but have other origins.

The Michigan amulet (haematite) last discussed (D. 264) represented a human body with two animal heads, those of an ibis and a serpent. The three-headed demon on the lapis lazuli of the British Museum might be regarded as a step farther in the same tendency to combine parts or symbols of various gods in one body.⁴² Yet there is an important difference. The supporting body in the compound figures previously described has at least maintained a reasonable semblance of humanity; but what we see on the London stone is a mere schematic suggestion of the human trunk and limbs. In this respect the figure somewhat resembles the so-called Akephalos of the second Berlin magical papyrus.⁴³ In neither instance is the square, blocky drawing merely the result of childish awkwardness, for a glance through the plates in Preisendanz's volumes shows equally awkward drawings that lack this characteristic. Another point should be noted, namely, that the word Akephalos is not strictly appropriate for the drawing in the Berlin papyrus, unless it is understood to mean that the figure lacks a human head, for the five small pennant-like projections from the shoulders resemble the heads of snakes.⁴⁴ The design on the London amulet, with its three small animal heads, may also be related to the Akephalos type; at any rate its style seems to mark its kinship to the drawing on the papyrus.

⁴⁰ P. Oslo I, 5, with Pl. 1 ; I, 85, with Pl. 3; see Preisendanz, Phil. Woch., 46 (1936), 402-403, and especially Procopé–Walter, ARW 30, 34-39.

⁴¹ PGM XII, 452, Pl. 2, fig. 1.

⁴² A passage in the Paris magical papyrus (PGM IV, 3125 ff.) tells how to male a charm to bring good luck to any place. It is a wax figure with three heads, hawk, baboon, and ibis, and with four extended wings. The type is evidently related to the pantheos of the late dynastic stelae and the Graeco-Egyptian gem amulets.

⁴³ PGM, Vol. I, Pl. 1, 2.

⁴⁴ Preisendanz recognizes the resemblance, but thinks that the projections are jets of blood represented in a conventional manner; cf. Akephalos, pp. 61–62; PGM II, note on I. 166. In Museo Borgiano, p. 454, 19, there is a description of a monster with human torso and arms, but with scorpion pincers in place of legs. In place of the head, seven snakes. Symbols and inscriptions in the field indicate that the monster is the Ram-lion-lotus god; see Dem. Mag. Pap., I, 12, and note.

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