Demons of the Netherworld — Knowing Their Names

When we hear the word "demon," most of us picture something out of medieval art: horned, winged, and thoroughly evil. Ancient Egypt had its own crowded population of supernatural beings that Egyptologists call "demons," but they rarely fit that mold. Many of them were neither good nor evil. They had jobs to do—guarding a doorway, watching over a stretch of road, protecting the sun god on his journey—and they did those jobs in some of the strangest bodies ever imagined: serpents striding on human legs, goddesses wielding knives, a mummy with coils of rope where his head should be.