2023-08-18 20:54:40
A 17-year-old high school student from Israel found a curious artifact during a pedagogical excavation activity at an ancient archaeological site in the Usha community, in Kiryat Atta, in the north of the country.
The object discovered by Aviv Weizman, who was attending a Young Leaders Survival Course taught by archaeologist Hanaa Abu Uqsa Abud, was a kind of ancient “magic mirror against demons”.
Aviv Weitzman, who found a piece of “magic mirror” in Usha, Israel, together with archaeologist Hanaa Abu Uqsa Abud, leader of the pedagogical project of which the girl is part. Credit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities Authority
According to a report in the local newspaper Timein fact, what the girl found was just the ceramic frame that supported a mirror plate around 1,500 years ago, at the end of the Byzantine Period, as estimated by radiocarbon dating.
One of the theories says that the artifact was used in catoptromancy – the Roman art of guessing using mirrors. However, this was not as widespread a practice as the use of mirrors to ward off demonic spirits, a custom present in more than one religious circle in antiquity.
Almost complete mirror plate found in the past in Nitzana, also in Israel, is very similar to the piece discovered by the student.Credit: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority
Although archaeologists cannot categorically determine that the clay structure, ornamented with drawings of spear points, was the frame of a mirrored plate to expel demons, that is the most likely hypothesis, explains Navit Popovitch, curator of the Israel Archaeological Authority ( IAA).
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Other mirrors against evil spirits have already been found in Israel
Other similar objects have already been found in Israel, but, according to Popovitch, they are rare finds. This newfound is almost exactly like one found at Yavneh Yam in 2007, which also features a ring of chevrons. The frame in which the mirror would be placed could be made of clay, stone or metal. “A piece of lead was found in a cave, in the shape of a rooster,” said the archaeologist.
She explains that research suggests the amulet was usually placed at the entrances to graves, so when an evil spirit saw its own reflection, was horrified and left. Thus, the dead would be protected. “They were also placed in baby cribs or hung on the wall.”
In the case of the evil eye reflector that the young student found in the Usha excavation, Popovitch says that the mirror would have been glued with plaster and that the marks around its circumference are mere decoration. “Others found in Israel from the late Roman and early Byzantine periods had other decorations, some quite complex.”
Popovitch explains that it is possible that these amulets had different uses, including by different peoples, from Romans and other “pagans” to Jews and early Christians. In common, all these populations held beliefs in evil spirits, which further reinforces the thesis.
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