The pounding of the name
| In Ancient Egypt there were three kinds of names: “The great name”, the “nice name” and the “nickname”. The great name was a sentence with a precise meaning, often religious, the nice name was the abbreviation of the great name informally used and which sometimes was not related to the great name but was actually a nickname. The name was not a simple assignment, in fact, according to the belief, through its knowledge you could dominate with magic the person with that name. That was why when they wanted to destroy a person, they eliminated his name pounding it away from the inscriptions. This evil spell was used both for the living and for the dead. The pounding of the name and sometimes of the pharaoh’s effigies who were to be forgotten, were often substituted by the title of the following sovereign. Tuthmosi III didi this with the queen Hatshepsut. When the religious traditions were restored, not only Akhenaton’s name was pounded away, but even his buildings were destroyed. Tutankhamon’s memory was replaced by Horemheb, Amenmess had the same fate as he was eliminated by Sethi II. There were also two cases known even among the divinities. Amon was cancelled by Akhenaton and from the IX century Seth, was considered only an enemy by the gods and by human beings because he had murdered Osiride. |
