It encounters the man without a personal god.Ĭannot undo (this spell). When it approaches at the entrance of the street, May it break into pieces like the potter’s pursītu-pot on the marketplace. May the evil eye, the sick eye be cut off, The Babylonian incantation quoted above likewise offers a verbal counter to the evil eye: The “eye of Horus,” for instance, was thought to protect Egyptians from evil and heal them from illness the “eye idols” of Tell Brak in Syria likely served a similar function. To protect against these misfortunes, individuals wore specially designed amulets, cast incantations, or applied special substances to their houses or their bodies. Farmers did not lose crops due to climate shifts or mismanagement the field withered because an evil eye caused it to do so. People believed that they did not lose a child due to high infant mortality rates, disease, or malnutrition the child died because some envious member of the community cast an evil eye. The evil eye was a way to explain these misfortunes. Those engaged in agriculture were also vulnerable, as lack of rainfall or a sudden change in weather could decimate crops vital for the entire community’s survival. These individuals were vulnerable to misfortune: premature death, the envy of neighbors, the loss of resources. The victims were typically the young or those experiencing a change in social status-a birth, marriage, or death in the family. Ĭertain individuals, typically widows or strangers, namely, those who did not fit into the normal constraints of society, were thought to possess an eye so powerful that its light could “harm or destroy any object, animate or inanimate, on which it falls.” Whether acquired naturally or through an unknown supernatural force (a deity or demon), they were believed to use their evil eye to take from others what they themselves could not have. The eye’s light collected information about the objects it interacted with, but it could also negatively influence the environment.
The ancient Greeks, for instance, argued that light from within the eye shot forth, connected with objects, and then returned to the eye. In antiquity, the reverse was thought to be true. In other words, the eye is a fairly passive organ it cannot act until acted upon by an outside force. According to modern science, vision occurs when an external light enters into the eye and is converted into electrical signals that the brain can process into recognizable images. (TCL 16.89) The Mechanics of the Evil Eyeīelief in the evil eye relies on a physiological understanding of the eye that is quite different from our own. The wild ram let its shining horns come out. The eye of the mountain came out from the mountain, It approached the garden-the fruit became bad. It approached the vegetables-lettuce and cress became bad, It approached the nurse with child-her hold became loose, It approached the young woman-she lost her garment,
It approached the young man-he lost his strength, It approached the cattle pen-its cheese became bad, It approached the earth-herbs did not grow, The eye of the evil man is a fearsome snake. The eye is a fearsome snake, the eye of the man is a fearsome snake, 1900-1600 B.C.E), for instance, details the havoc wrought by the evil eye: A spell from the Old Babylonian period (ca. This belief was not limited to Sumer and can be found in cultures across Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. In the Lament for Sumer and Urim, for instance, the god Enlil puts “the evil eye on the sons of the loyal men” to decimate them, while in the Lament for Eridug, Enlil “looked maliciously at Sumer he demolished it.” The Instructions of Šuruppag warns “Do not do evil with your eye” and even describes this as worse than a curse: Met Museumīelief in the evil eye- igi ḫul in Sumerian-can be traced to ancient Sumer (ca. The Evil Eye in Sumer and Beyond Wedjat Eye Amulet, Egypt. Although largely viewed as souvenirs or fashion accessories by Western tourists today, these charms are intended to protect the wearer from the evil eye, the harmful glance of another, and reflect a belief that dates back to antiquity. In Jewish or Islamic stores, you might even find a hamsa, a hand-shaped amulet, which sometimes has a picture of an eye in the palm.
Walk into a traditional gift shop around the Mediterranean, and you might see a collection of brightly colored necklaces or keychains or pottery items with several concentric circles.
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