The word Pharaoh is a manipulation of the words Per A. meaning Great House. At first it generally meant the whole of the palace and those who lived there. In time it began to mean solely the King.
If we use a more recent example most of the English nobility with titles such as Duke of Norfolk, or Earl of Sussex were oftenr eferred to merely as Sussex or as Norfolk by many people. This had nothing to do with their actual names and often came from just the places that their titles gave them power to.

Here are some more random facts that I found on the web (so be cautious- they might not be true):

In order to deter flies from landing on him, Pepi II of Egypt always kept several naked slaves nearby whose bodies were smeared with honey.

Some ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made out of stone.

In the oldest surviving work about mathematics (the Rhind papyrus, written by the ancient Egyptian scribe Ahmes around 1650 B.C.), there is a section on arithmetic headed "Directions for Knowing all Dark Things".

Pharaoh Ramses II was soundly defeated by the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh in 1294 B.C. Undaunted, the Egyptian ruler erected a memorial to commemorate his magnificent "victory". The monument endured, and generation upon generation of historians paid tribute to Ramses' military triumph. Only recently have archaeologists unearthed the truth about the Battle of Kadesh. (I am sure you will correct me on this!)

The oldest recorded death sentence is contained in the Amherst papyri, dating to 1500 B.C., which listed Egyptian state trials. A teenaged male, convicted of "magic", was sentenced to kill himself by either poison or stabbing.

I also have some excerpts from a hymn to Senusret III:

He has come to us, he has taken the land of the well,
the double crown is placed on his head!
Twice great are the owners of his city
for he is the goddess Sekhmet to the foes who tread on his boundary!
Twice joyful be thou, O Horus! widening thy boundary,
mayest thou renew an eternity of life.
Twice great are the owners of his city
for he is a refuge, shutting out the robber.
He has come ...........
of what his mighty arm brings to us.
He has come, we bring up our children,
we bury our aged by his good favour.

I think that is a lovely hymn. I can just imagine hundreds of people shouting it out in exultation to a god on earth. It must have been a fantastic sight, with priestesses waving sistrums and tambourines, and music playing. It would make an awsome scene for in any story set in Egypt, don't you agree?

As I say, I got them all of the internet, except the last one, the hymn.

About the magic, I agree with you. The word hekau applies to any 'magician' as they are now known, and being one was certainly a very respected profession. Remember that priests were just essentially magicians as well. However, not all spells were good. Speaking the king's true name (nomen) was punishable by death, and it was believed that by knowing somebody's true name you gained power over them.

Curses have also been found, and perhaps this what it was referring to. It may not have even been true, because we all know that the internet is a most untrustworthy source. stick with good old fashioned books- that's what I say. And none of those awful 'based on startling new evidence' documentaries please!

Thought that this may be of interest to you--it concerns Heka. It's a press release from Egyptian Exploration Society.

In Egyptian myth, magic (heka) was one of the forces used by the creator to make the world. Through heka, symbolic actions could have practical effects. All deities and people were thought to possess this force in some degree, but there were rules about why and how it could be used.

'The most respected users of magic were the lector priests...'
Priests were the main practitioners of magic in pharaonic Egypt, where they were seen as guardians of a secret knowledge given by the gods to humanity to 'ward off the blows of fate'. The most respected users of magic were the lector priests, who could read the ancient books of magic kept in temple and palace libraries. In popular stories such men were credited with the power to bring wax animals to life, or roll back the waters of a lake.


Statue of Sekhmet © Real lector priests performed magical rituals to protect their king, and to help the dead to rebirth. By the first millennium BC, their role seems to have been taken over by magicians (hekau). Healing magic was a speciality of the priests who served Sekhmet, the fearsome goddess of plague.

Lower in status were the scorpion-charmers, who used magic to rid an area of poisonous reptiles and insects. Midwives and nurses also included magic among their skills, and wise women might be consulted about which ghost or deity was causing a person trouble.

Amulets were another source of magic power, obtainable from 'protection-makers', who could be male or female. None of these uses of magic was disapproved of - either by the state or the priesthood. Only foreigners were regularly accused of using evil magic. It is not until the Roman period that there is much evidence of individual magicians practising harmful magic for financial reward.

The term "brother" was used as the ultimate endearment, a woman called her lover "brother" even though he was not, which made many people consider incest a very common practise in pre-hellenistic egypt.

The term "brother" was used as the ultimate endearment, a woman called her lover "brother" even though he was not, which made many people consider incest a very common practise in pre-hellenistic egypt.

-Maharet

I was always led to beleive that it was quite rare for a Pharaoh to marry his mother, but more common to marry a sister, cousin or even a daughter. We argued about this with regard to Queen Tiy and Akhenaten and it was said that the Egyptians found mother/son incest abhorrent.

Mother/son incest is very uncommon, but not unheard of. What was more common but we would view as equally repugnant is a father marrying his daughters. Ramesses II married no less than four of his own daughters: Bintanath, Meritamun, Nebettawi and Hentmire. Egyptian morals were of course, radically different from those that we hold today!

The main gods of ancient Egypt had little choice in who to marry, and Nephthys seems to have picked the short straw when she ended up as the wife of Seth.
I think perhaps that she didn't like Seth a great deal, as it seems that she spent most of her time with Isis, and once he had been rebuilt- Osiris.

Going of on a tangent- Are there any myths that suggest that Nephthys and Seth really did love one another?