There is another post dealing with the first recorded magic trick. Most of this has consisted of references to written documents.

At any rate, this got me thinking: what was the first visually recorded image (either through a still picture or on movie film) of a magic trick? Bill Palmer even asked if that went for drawings, graphics, sketches, etc. That, too, is a good question. How about all of them? Each one is signifigant in its own way.

It's been fairly well established that the painting on the wall of the tomb at Beni Hasan is not a pair of cups and balls workers. There is an incredible amount of misinformation about this painting.

So, what do we have as far as items that have survived from antiquity? Not much, really. Some mention has been made of jugglers, etc. in some of the Egyptian tomb paintings and carvings, but I don't know of any sources that show these. I also do not know of any sources that show cave paintings of early humans doing magic tricks for one another.

The problem lies with how art was used in the old days. Most art was used as an historical record or as a part of some kind of worship. I think we need to separate the non-trickster applications of magic from, say, representations of people performing as entertainment.

In 1956, Kurt Volkmann wrote a book called das Becherspiel, which was translated into English and published as The Oldest Deception. It has illustrations of people performing the cups and balls that are taken from medieval manuscripts and/or graphics. The oldest one in his book is a vignette from a book of the planets. The medieval scientists thought of the moon as a planet and ascribed to the moon the power to drive people mad and to get them to commit foolish acts. Often, on the page illustrating the moon (Luna) there would be a vignette of a man performing the cups and balls. The earliest of these in Volkmann's book dates back to around 1404, and is a sketch by an unknown master painter from Ulm. This is in the University of Tübingen.

I know this is sort of a cold thread, but I thought I'd comment anyway.

Penn and Teller have a DVD out called "Penn and Tellers Magical Mystery Tour" which is sort of a documentary of their travels in China, Egypt, and India to seek out the local magic.

The Egyptian trip includes a segment in a tomb, possibly Beni Hasan's (although my memory escapes me here) where the sections of the hieroglyphs with the supposed cups and balls trick and jugglers are filmed. Bill is right on the cups and balls part. The picture is not very clear and as Penn commented, "it could just as well be a pair of ancient bongo players."

The glyphs on jugglers looked pretty convincing though. Interesting DVD in many respects.

Perhaps the summoning of the bison image on that cavewall in France?