Magicians have been practicing their cunning for age , but what ’s the first magic trick that was recorded for posterity ?
harmonize to some historians , the oldest trick in the script is more like the oldest deception on the wall . A painting on the midland walls of an Egyptian burial bedroom , created as early as 2500 BCE , appears to show two men performing what ’s known as “ the cups and bollock ” and may be the early platter of a magic operation .
The cup and balls unremarkably affect hold three balls decease through the side and rear end of three cups and having them jump from cup to cup , evaporate and re-emerge . The function involve some of magic ’s most fundamental effects and skills — like vanishes and transposition , and misdirection and dexterity — and master it is often reckon a expert education in thaumaturgy or a rite of musical passage for a performer .
It is indeed a very sometime trick , enunciate charming historiographer Bill Palmer , but he does n’t reckon that ’s what the grave paintings portray .
For one thing , Palmer sound out , the image shows cups , but no balls . It also depicts a couplet of masses handling the cups , but the trick has almost always been done by a solo performing artist , even in its very early story . Cups and balls does n’t make sense in the context of the other nearby drawings from the tomb , either . The rest of the image in the series show people prepare food — a fumbler with his knife , creature being conduct to slaughter , etc . The humanity in the picture , the grounds evoke to Palmer , are n’t magician and they ’re not manage cups ; they ’re bakers realize bread for a spread .
The next recorded reference to the cups and balls amount from the writings of a Roman Catholic source around 45 CE , which still belike reach it the oldest sleight of hired hand whoremaster . The lota pipe bowl trick — which involves a vas that can seemingly refill itself after being empty — is the oldest known prop trick , and dates to around 3000 BCE , according to magician / historian Bill Spooner .
( The GEICO folks haveanother possibility . )
