Phoenician & Punic glass faces
Meaning
Tiny glass heads of bearded men, demons and women with staring eyes and ringlets show faces meant to look back at the viewer, like the gorgoneion and the eye bead. Some represent gods such as Bes or Baal, others generic protective faces.
Intent
They were worn as pendants, often several on a necklace, to repel the evil eye and misfortune, and were placed in graves. The strong colours and wide eyes were part of their protective force.
Significance
They are masterpieces of core-formed glass technology and the signature product of Carthaginian and Phoenician workshops, traded across the Mediterranean to Sardinia, Ibiza, Spain and Etruria. They show how the evil-eye idea travelled with merchants.
History
Glass head pendants were made from the 7th to the 3rd century BCE, peaking in the 4th–3rd centuries at Carthage. Many come from the Punic necropolis of Puig des Molins in Ibiza and from Tharros in Sardinia.
Making yours
2–5 cm. Rod-formed coloured glass: a dark blue or yellow face, with trailed white and yellow curls and dotted eyes. Lampwork is the modern route.Ancient Near East & Levant: the tradition
Mesopotamian protection grew out of a world crowded with named demons, each with a job: Lamashtu killed infants, the utukku haunted, fever demons struck. Exorcists (ashipu) wrote incantation series such as Maqlû and the Lamashtu texts, and amulets put those texts and images to work. Carved stone animal seals of the Uruk period (c. 3500 BCE) are among the oldest amulet-seals anywhere. In the first millennium BCE, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian households hung Pazuzu heads and Lamashtu plaques. Phoenician traders spread Egyptianising amulets and glass faces across the Mediterranean, and in Sasanian Mesopotamia Jews, Christians and Mandaeans buried inscribed incantation bowls under their floors.
More from Ancient Near East & Levant: Pazuzu heads & figures · Lamashtu plaques · Stamp-seal & animal amulets · Eye idols · Aramaic incantation bowls · Luristan & Iranian bronze charms · Other & unsorted Ancient Near East
Every type in the gallery
Anything in the gallery can be made: any piece, any tradition, in its own material or yours, by hand from the documented original. Numbered. Price on commission, quoted before anything is made. I reply within one business day.