Glass, Envy, and the Mediterranean

Apotropaic eyes are ancient in the eastern Mediterranean. Archaic Greek drinking cups were painted with great staring eyes, ships carried eyes at their prows, and eye beads in glass and faience circulated in the region from antiquity, blue being both the color of scarce and startling eyes and a color long associated with warding. Frederick Elworthy's Victorian survey The Evil Eye gathered this material into the first broad English account of the amulet tradition, tracing eye charms, horns and hand gestures across the classical and modern Mediterranean.

The modern nazar boncugu, the eye bead of Turkey, descends through Anatolian glasswork. Small furnaces in villages near Izmir, notably in the village now known as Nazarkoy, still make the beads by hand, layering molten glass in dark blue, white and pale blue and setting the pupil while the disc is hot, and the handmade craft persists even as molded and plastic versions pour from factories to meet a demand that shows no sign of fading. What distinguishes the nazar from many amulets is its openness. It carries no scripture and belongs to no confession; Turkish Muslims, Greek Christians and Sephardi Jews have all hung the same blue eye, sometimes alongside specifically religious protections such as scriptural verses, crosses or the hamsa hand. It is protection stripped to a single gesture: something is looking at you; let this look back.