The Demonology Project has come up with a cool way to promote themselves over the festive season: the Demon Advent Calendar. Each day, they’ll post a different Egyptian demon, and they’re certainly drawing from eclectic sources. Day 1 featured “He Who Drives Off Those Who Would Demolish” from the Book of Two Ways, while Day 2 featured an unnamed man-eating hippo demon from a magician’s wand in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This is a great example of how academic projects can engage with the public in a fun and interesting manner. One of my big gripes about the Academy is its tendency to ignore the little people outside the ivory tower, so I’m always happy when I see academics bucking that trend. I also like that the Demonology Project hasn’t felt the need to dumb things down. They provide just the right amount of info to get the point across without burying non-specialists in a bunch of extraneous details.
Now if only the Demon Advent Calendar came with chocolate… 🙂
Codex Lochianus 