The Oldest Tricks in the Book

The oldest fables of magic and illusions stemmed from the ancient Egyptian book called the Westcar Papyrus. This book housed many stories depicting wizards of ancient Egypt and the twisted magic that they would preform such as The Wax Crocodile, The Story of the Green Jewel, The Birth of the Royal children, and most famously, Djedi the Magician.

Djedi was legendarily known for decapitating the heads of animals and then reattaching them soon after. In the Westcar Papyrus he is summoned by King Cheops, the man known for building the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, and told to perform his trick. Djedi then takes a plump goose and severs its head, placing it far from its body. Then, using his magic, the goose was whole again. The king pressed Djedi to perform the trick again, and he did. He did it many times, and each time the king was amazed.

The oldest actual recorded magic trick is the "cups and balls" trick. It was originally thought to be a painting scrawled across the wall of an ancient Egyptian burial chamber, but later was debunked by magic historian Bill Palmer who believed that the painting was actually of bakers preparing bread. The cups and balls trick was recorded though by a Roman man from around 45 CE.

http://www.magicworld.co.uk/cups-and-balls/

The cups and balls trick is performed with cups and balls, as you'd probably think. The cups would be placed upside down on a table and little balls would be placed on top of each one. Then the magician would make the balls disappear, appear under the cups, and hop back and forth between the cups.

Another magic trick similar to this is known as Thimblerig, or the shell game. This is the game where you need to keep your eye on the one object, traditionally it is a pea, and keep track of where it goes as the magician covers it with one of three shells and quickly mixes them all up together. This is commonly known to be executed by street performers.