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

l62 THE EVIL EYE CHAP.
The illustration here given is from the under side
of a very beautifully wrought bronze lamp in the
Museum at Cortona, intended for suspension, and it
would seem from these several instances, that this
mode of depicting the Gorgon's head was, as we are
told,-*^^ a very common Etruscan sepulchral decoration.
Fig. 50 is from a poor
printsoldatthe Museum,
but it gives a better idea
of the Medusa and her
surroundings than either
of the plates in Dennis's
book. About this lamp
he says (vol. ii. p. 402):
" But the wonder of
ancient wonders, in the
Museum of Cortona, is
a bronze lamp of such
surpassing beauty and
elaboration of workmanship
as to throw into
shade every toreutic
work of this class yet
discovered in the soil of Etruria." It is circular,
about 23 inches in diameter, hollow like a bowl,
but from the centre rises a sort of conical chimney
or tube, to which must have been attached
a chain for its suspension. Round the rim are
sixteen lamps of classic form, fed by oil from the
great bowl, and adorned with foliage in relief
Alternatinof with them are heads of the horned
and bearded Bacchus. At the bottom of each lamp
is a figure in relief—alternately a draped siren with
2S5 Dennis, op. cit. vol. i. p. 199.