The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

IV THE SCARAB^US 125
p. 259, are regular articles of sale in all Eastern
bazaars. At Constantinople they may be bought
by the dozen.
ft was said by Plutarch-*^^ that when Isis brought
into the world Harpocrates, the posthumous son of
Osiris, she wore an amulet round her neck, in the
shape of a vase, the " emblem of Ma," the goddess
of truth. The vase was also a symbol of Osiris."^^"
This vase represented water ; hence the vivifying
power of nature, i.e. Osiris the personification of
the Nile,""- which was thus typified by a vasej
Among the ancient Egyptians not only were pro-
tecting amulets worn by the living, but in that land
where the belief in a future life seemed to absorb so
much of the care and interest of the present, they
placed them in profusion on their dead, in order that
they might be protected from evil spirits and the
blighting eye, during the dark passage from this
(world to the next.
Maspero-"^ says these amulets (speaking of scarabs)
Fig. g.-^From Author's Collection.
were " symboles de duree presente ou future," placed,
ailes ddploydes, upon the breast of the dead along
with a written prayer (Fig. 9), that the heart (of the
201 Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, iii. 130.
-^^«- lb. iii. 80.
20- Plutarch, De hide, s. 32 ; Wilkinson, iii. 74.
203 Archeologie Egyptietine, p. 236. See also Wilkinson, vol. iii. p. 4S6.