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Stones as Talismans and Amulets: Morris

Cords of light-colored wool, Offered (?) with a pure hand, For jaundice of the eye, Bind on the right side (of the patient). A lululti ring, with sparkling stones Brought from his own land, For inflammation of the eye, On the little finger Of his left (hand), place. (Morris Jastrow, "Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens," vol. i, Giessen, 1905.) A curious Babylonian mythological text represents the solar diety Ninib, the son of Bel, as determining the fate of various stones by pronouncing a blessing or a curse upon them. For instance, the dolomite was blessed and declared to be fit material for the statues of kings, while a substance called the elu stone was cursed, proclaimed to be unfit for working, and doomed to disintegration. Alabaster was favored by the god, but chalcedony aroused his anger and was condemned. (Morris Jastrow, l. c., p. 462.) In these Sumero-Assyrian inscriptions, there is also mention of two stones, the aban rame and the aban la rame, the "Stone of Love" and the "Stone of Hate" (lit. "non-love"). (Delitzsch, "Assyrisches Worterbuch," Leipzig, 1896, p. 604.) Evidently these stones were believed to excite one or other of these contradictory passions in the hearts of the wearers, and they may be compared with the stones of memory and forgetfulness in the "Gesta Romanorum." In an ancient Egyptian burial-place at Shech Abd el-Qurna, excavated by Passalaqua, was found the mummy of a young woman. Not only was it evident from the rich ornaments adorning the body that she had been of noble birth, but it was also apparent that she must have been exceedingly beautiful in form and feature, and must have died in the flower of her age. The hair was artistically braided and adorned with twenty bronze hairpins. About her neck was a remarkably beautiful necklace composed of four rows of beads with numerous pendants representing divinities and sacred symbols. There were also two smaller necklaces with beads of gold, lapis-lazuli, and carnelian; two large jewelled ear-rings hung from her ears, and on the index-finger of her right hand was a ring set with a scarab; a gold belt garnished with lapis-lazuli and carnelians was bound about her waist and a gold bracelet adorned with semiprecious stones encircled her left wrist. In the sarcophagus was a beautiful mirror of golden-yellow bronze, and three alabaster vases, one still containing some balm or perfume, and another some galena (native lead sulphide) to be used as a cosmetic for the eyes, as well as a little ebony pencil for its application. All these objects are now in the Egyptian collection of the Berlin Museum, and they probably belong to the period of the XVIII Dynasty, about 1500 B.C.

The principal necklace was undoubtedly regarded by the fair Egyptian as an amulet of great power, but it failed to protect her from an untimely end; perhaps, however, its virtues may have aided her soul in its passage through the trials and tests imposed in the underworld. Of the numerous pendants which lent to the necklace its peculiar quality as an amulet, three, in carnelian, figure the god Bes; seven, also in carnelian, the hippopotamus-goddess Toeris, of whom there are besides two representations in lapis-lazuli; then we have a heart of lapis-lazuli; a cat of lapis-lazuli; four falcons of carnelian; one crocodile of carnelian and two of lapis-lazuli; four fish of carnelian, as well as two others of a blackish-white and of a green stone, respectively, and two scorpions of carnelian, and seven flower-forms of the same stone. The greater part of the beads in this necklace are of annular form, of gold, electrum, ivory, or lapis-lazuli; there are a few larger annular or spherical beads of carnelian, chrysoprase, and malachite, and measuring up to 3.5 cm. in diameter. ("Aegyptische Goldschmiedearbeit," ed. by Heinrich Schaffer, Berlin, 1910, pp. 25-32; necklace figured on Pl. V, other objects on Pls. V-VII.) A necklace, from the time of the Old Empire (c. 3500 B.C.), and having for its chief adornment a turquoise pendant rudely fashioned into the form of an ibex, was found by the German Orient-Gesellschaft at Abusir el-Meleq in 1905. This necklace, the parts of which were found about the neck of a body, presumably that of a young man, was composed of rounded and annular beads of carnelian and shell, as well as of flat, perforated fragments of turquoise and almandine garnet and an approximately lozenge-shaped bead of amethyst 1.7 cm. long and 1.4 cm. broad. The chief ornament was the turquoise ibex 1.7 cm. in length and 0.9 cm. high. (Ibid., p. 14, Pl. II, figs. 3a, 3b.) This figure suggests a comparison with the animal and bird forms fashioned out of turquoise that have been found in Indian graves in Arizona and New Mexico, and it probably had the quality of a fetich, or at least of a talisman, intended to guard the wearer of the necklace from harm.

That there was in Egypt a strong inclination to use a certain particular stone for a given amulet, will be noted in the case of those inscribed with special chapters of the Book of the Dead. This is also true of amulets of certain forms. For instance, the head-rest amulet is usually of hematite as is also the carpenter's square. Of the heart amulets, numbering 47 in the rich collections of the Cairo Museum, nine are of carnelian, four of hematite, two of lapis-lazuli, and two each of green porphyry and green jasper, carnelian being thus the most favored among the more precious materials. Amulets of animal form are plentifully represented in this collection, figuring a large variety of members of the animal kingdom such as the hippopotamus, crocodile, lion, bull, cow, hare, dog-headed ape, cat, dog (somewhat doubtful), jackal, hedgehog, frog, hawk, cobra and fishes, to which list may be added a four-headed ram and a ram-headed sphinx. (See Reisner, "Catalogue generale des antiquites egyptiennes du Musee du Caire: Amulets" Le Caire, 1907.) One of the special uses of amulets was for seafaring people, for, in ancient times especially, all who went down to the sea in ships were greatly in need of protection from the fury of the elements when they embarked in their small sailing-vessels. A fragment of a Greek Lapidary, (Pitra, "Specilegium Solesmense," Parisiis, 1855, vol. iii, p. 393.) probably written in the third or fourth century of our era, gives a list of seven amulets peculiarly adapted for this purpose. The number might suggest a connection with the days of the week, and the amulets were perhaps regarded as most efficacious when used on the respective days.