Ancient Egyptian priests firmly believed that writing down a person's name gave you absolute magical power over them

A closer look

Identity theft was taken to an entirely different supernatural level in the ancient world. Egyptian magicians believed a person's true name was an integral part of their soul. If you inscribed someone's name on a clay pot and then dramatically smashed it, you were allegedly inflicting devastating mystical harm upon them. It was essentially the Bronze Age equivalent of blocking someone on social media, just with way more pottery shards.