ACADEMIA Letters the Iconography on the Paphos IAEW-Amulet May Draw Upon the Apotropaic ‘All-Suffering Eye’ Motif

ACADEMIA Letters The iconography on the Paphos IAEW-amulet may draw upon the apotropaic ‘All-Suffering Eye’ motif

Lloyd D. Graham

A magical amulet – Inv. no. PAP/FR 44/2011 – was discovered at Nea Paphos in Cyprus in 2011, and published by Joachim Sliwa in 2013.[1] Dating from the 5-6th centuries CE, it contains on its obverse face a lengthy IAEW-palindrome, and on its reverse face some unusual iconography in a crude but unmistakably Egyptian style (Fig. 1). Sliwa summarises the visual program as: “a schematic, simplified figure of a sitting Har- pocrates and below the mummy of Osiris in a boat; as well as depictions of animals: apart from the vertical silhouette of a cynocephalus (in mummified form (?)) depicted on the right, a crocodile, a rooster and a snake with its body in a single coil, as well as the images of symbolic astrals (a half-moon and a star).”[2] Despite some alternative appraisals of the iconography,[3] it seems that the layout of the scene has not hitherto been connected to an apotropaic design against the Evil Eye known as the “All-Suffering Eye,” which dates back at least to the time of the early Roman Empire. This short communication proposes such a connection. The “All-Suffering Eye” motif frequently occupies the reverse face of Byzantine copper/ bronze Holy Rider amulets; it is so called because it shows the Evil Eye being attacked from all directions by a variety of weapons and animals (Fig. 2).[4] The complete medallions / pendants are sometimes called “Seals of Solomon” as they may bear this name in their Greek captions.[5] For example, in Fig. 2a, the encircling Greek reads “Seal of Solomon, drive away all evil from the wearer,” while above the eye is the caption phthonos, “envy.” In the words of Christopher Faraone: “The most familiar ancient amulet against the evil eye was an image of the ‘all-suffering eye’ (ho polupathes ophthalmos), which appears, for example, on the early Byzantine medallion in Fig. 6 [here Fig. 2a]. A stylized eye sits at the

Corresponding Author: Lloyd D. Graham, [email protected] Citation: Graham, L.D. (2021). The iconography on the Paphos IAEW-amulet may draw upon the apotropaic ‘All-Suffering Eye’ motif. Academia Letters, Article 1256. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1256. 1 Fig. 1. Amulet PAP/FR 44/2011 from Paphos, reverse face. Image courtesy of Joachim Sliwa & W. Machowski, Paphos Agora Project, Jagiellonian University, Krakow; reproduced here by kind permission. centre of the composition surrounded by attackers: heraldic lions from the sides, an ibis, a snake and a scorpion from below, and three daggers from above.”[8] A supine figure – which may appear to be fish-like or mummiform – is often shownatthe bottom of the “All-Suffering Eye” design, as indeed it is in Fig. 2a; this is usually takento be the destructive demoness Abyzou, an emanation from or personification of the primeval ocean, now located in the netherworld and associated with death.[9] She has “myriad names and forms;”[10] Abyzou is cognate with the English word “Abyss,” but she is also known as Gello, Gyllou, Alabasdria and Obyzouth.[11] Amulets with the “All-Suffering Eye” motif were particularly popular in the 5-7th centuries CE.[12] They probably originated in Syria-Palestine, but travelled widely around the Mediterranean – examples have been found not only in Syria and in modern-day Israel but also in western Anatolia and Carthage.[13] Their time and place of manufacture therefore overlaps with that of the Paphos amulet, which “seems to belong to a group of objects coming from a

Syrian-Palestine workshop of the late 5th century AD.”[14] It is interesting that many of the general features of the Evil Eye template (Fig. 2a,b) also seem to be present in the scene on the Paphos amulet (Fig. 1). These include the bird and snake that face each other from left and right of centre, respectively,[15] and the supine body at the bottom associated with death and water (Osiris in his funeral barge or the female death- demon from the watery Abyss). Even the symbols at the very top and bottom of the Paphos amulet are found in corresponding positions on some Eye medallions; symbols of the sun, the moon and a star often appear above the “All-Suffering Eye” motif,[16] while a crocodile may appear horizontally at the very bottom.[17] More speculatively, the “cynocephalus” to the right of the snake on the Paphos amulet, which has one hand raised to its head, might be identified with the “heraldic lion” to the right of the snake in the Eye template, bothofwhose forelimbs are raised. The Harpocrates figure on the Paphos amulet also has a cognate in some versions ofthe apotropaic Eye motif, such as the version on a Roman house-floor mosaic from the 2nd century CE found in Antioch (Fig. 3). This site, in modern-day Turkey, lies just 160 km from the eastern tip of Cyprus.

Corresponding Author: Lloyd D. Graham, [email protected] Citation: Graham, L.D. (2021). The iconography on the Paphos IAEW-amulet may draw upon the apotropaic ‘All-Suffering Eye’ motif. Academia Letters, Article 1256. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL1256. 3 In the mosaic we can see the bird and snake who – as usual – face each other from left and right of centre, respectively, joined by some additional animals that also attack the Eye. Most conspicuous, however, is the pipe-playing dwarf, who is shown with an enormous phallus that projects behind him to further threaten the Eye.[18] He has three elements in common with the Harpocrates figure of the Paphos amulet: (1) a childlike figure with short legs, (2)onehand raised toward his mouth, and (3) a large rear-pointing club-shaped appendage or accessory. In the Paphos amulet, the third feature was identified by Sliwa as an oversized and misshapen flail,[19] yet it far more closely resembles a phallic club – eventhe glans penis appears to be demarcated. Interestingly, the club of Heracles is one of the weapons often shown assaulting the Evil Eye from above in the “All-Suffering Eye” template.[20] Of this, Veronique Dasen has remarked: “In an amuletic context, I regard Heracles’ club as interchangeable with the phallus as a weapon against the Evil Eye.”[21] If, as proposed, the apotropaic “All-Suffering Eye” design is one of the sources that has contributed to the imagery on the Paphos amulet, then – somewhat anticlimactically – the Evil

Fig. 3. The “all-suffering eye” template in a mosaic from a 2nd-century CE Roman house in Antioch (near modern Antakya, Turkey).[22]

References

[1] Joachim Sliwa (2013) ‘Magical Amulet from Paphos with the IAEW-Palindrome,’ Studies in Ancient Art and Civilization 17, 293-300 & Pl. 1; Joachim Sliwa (2015) ‘Amulet z Pafos z Formula Magiczna Zapisana Jako Palindrom,’ Meander - Rocznik Poswiecony Kulturze Swiata Starozytnego 70, 151-160.

[2] Joachim Sliwa (2020) ‘Stone Objects,’ In: Paphos Agora Project, vol. 1, ed. Edwoskia Papuci-Wladyka, Historia Iagellonica, Krakow, 423-424, at 423.

[3] E.g., Alexandra (2015) ‘The Paphos Amulet: A Reinterpretation,’ Otherwise [blog], online at https://otherwiseways.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/the-paphos-amulet-a-reinterpretation/ (accessed 8 Jun, 2021).

[4] Jeffrey Spier (1993) ‘Medieval Byzantine Magical Amulets and Their Tradition,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 56, 25-62 & Pls. 1-6, at 60 & 62; Christopher A. Faraone (2013) ‘The Amuletic Design of the Mithraic Bull-Wounding Scene,’ Journal of Roman Studies 103, 96-116, at 104; Veronique Dasen (2015) ‘Probaskania: Amulets and Magic in Antiquity,’ In: The Materiality of Magic [Morphomata 20], eds. Dietrich Boschung & Jan N. Bremmer, Wilhelm Fink, Paderborn, 177-204, at 181-184.

[5] Gustave Schlumberger (1892) ‘Amulettes Byzantins Anciens, Destines a Combattre les Malefices et Maladies,’ Revue des Etudes Grecques 5.17, 73-93, at 74,online at https://doi. org/10.3406/reg.1892.5535; Vicky A. Foskolou (2014) ‘The Magic of the Written Word: The Evidence of Inscriptions on Byzantine Magical Amulets,’ Deltion tis Christianikis Archaiologikis Etaireias [Bulletin of the Christian Archaeological Society, Athens] 35, 329-348, at 339; online at http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/dchae.1761.

[7] “Amuletic pendant,” Walters Art Museum 54.2653, online at https://art.thewalters.org/ detail/22369/amuletic-pendant/, accessed 5 Jun, 2021.

[8] Faraone (2013),104. Faraone’s interpretation follows that of Schlumberger (1892), 74.

[9] A.A. Barb (1966) ‘Antaura: The Mermaid and the Devil’s Grandmother - A Lecture,’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 29, 1-23, at 2-7; Spier (1993), 33, 37-38, 41 & 61-62.

[10] Barb (1966), 5; Dasen (2015), 183.

[11] Barb (1966), 2-7; Spier (1993), 33; Dasen (2015), 183.

[12] Foskolou (2014), 339.

[13] Spier (1993), 62.

[14] Sliwa (2013), 298; Sliwa (2020), 424.

[15] In Fig. 2a, the bird and snake are adjacent; in Fig. 2b, the scorpion has been placed between them.

[16] Schlumberger (1892), 76-78 (nos. 2 & 3).

[17] Schlumberger (1892), 83 (no. 12).

[18] Faraone (2013), 105-106, incl. fn. 39.

[19] Sliwa (2013), 295.

[20] Faraone (2013), 104; J. Engemann, ‘Zur Verbreitung Magischer Ubelabwehr in der Nicht-Christlichen und Christlichen Spatantike,’ Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum 18, 22-48, at 26.

[21] Dasen (2015), 187.

[22] Wikimedia Commons, online at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antiochia_- _House_of_the_Evil_Eye.jpg, accessed 5 Jun, 2021.

[23] Sliwa (2013), 295; reiterated in Sliwa (2020), 424.