With such an ardent and widespread belief that a stare held the power to inflict catastrophic misfortune, it’s no surprise that the people of these ancient civilizations sought out a means to repel it, which led to the earliest iterations of the
nazar amulet that we know today. Just how far back do these go? “The earliest version of eye amulets goes back to 3,300 BC,” Dr Nese Yildiran, an art history professor at Istanbul’s Bahçeşehir University, tells BBC Culture. “The amulets had been excavated in Tell Brak, one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia – modern day Syria. They were in the form of some abstract alabaster idols made with incised eyes.”
