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# The Pushkin Museum today showed a new acquisition for its collection: an ancient Egyptian magic wand made from the tusk of a male hippopotamus
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/pushkinskii-muzei-segodnia-pokazal-novoe-priobretenie-v-kollektsiiu-drevneegipetskii-magicheskii-zhezl-iz-zuba-samtsa-gippopotama/
- Published: 2025-07-07T20:28:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:29:30.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Moscow, Museums

The wand is broken, so no magical powers remain in it.

It is the third such object in the museum's holdings; the other two come from the collection of the Russian Egyptologist Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev. The newly acquired piece comes from the collection of the Australian surgeon Harley Baxter.

The wand bears relief images of wild animals and mystical symbols: a cobra on a shrine, a sun disc with legs, a baboon in a pose of prayer, a sacred bull with a sun disc between its horns, a lion on the roof of a temple, a monkey, the sa loop and the sun disc of Horus, a stem with a lotus bud, a frog, the wedjat eye.

Not many magic wands have survived in the world, although in Ancient Egypt this was a fairly common attribute of healing: by means of the wand, sickness was driven out of the body and a protective line was drawn around the bed or dwelling. Many such wands were made precisely from the tusks of hippopotamuses, the most dangerous animals of the Nile valley.

> Most wands come from the tombs of grandees. For example, in an anonymous burial discovered during the excavation of the mortuary temple of Ramesses II on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes (modern Luxor), a wooden chest was found among the funerary goods. It contained papyrus scrolls with magical and medical texts, wooden figurines of women, models of food offerings, wax figurines, a bronze uraeus cobra and four ivory magic wands. All these objects were probably used during the recitation of spells by some priest, magician or healer (in Egyptian, sau).

> Sometimes wands bear the inscription sa heru, “protection of the day”, that is, protection for a whole day. The name reflects the function of such apotropaic objects, which were meant to guard against visible and invisible dangers, above all against the bites of venomous creatures during sleep.

The wands were used to draw a magic circle, as a result of which their rounded ends wore down over time. To ward off the evil spirits dwelling in the “twilight zone” and to protect against disease and sudden death, wands could be placed on the bed or beside it. The most vulnerable in this respect were the gravely ill, pregnant women and women in labour, and children, especially newborns. In tombs, the wands provided a “safety zone” for the deceased  
.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_17163@07-07-2025_23-28-05.jpg)