Magic of plastic

Magic of plastic

by | Magic & Amulets

surprising materials

The magic of plastic

Updated Jan 8, 2024

Jewellery made with materials that we consider less valuable, are often not taken seriously. Plastic has that effect in particular, and you may hear comments like: ‘this piece has plastic, so it’s not real’ or even ‘this is a fake because it should have coral instead of plastic.’ But who says that it should…?⁠ Plastic plays a role in ethnic jewellery quite often, and its use extends into the realm of amulets. Here are a few examples.

Silver and enamel brooch from Kabylia, with bakelite
Bedouin woman holding her child, with silver and imitation amber jewellery.
Silver Bedouin ring with turquoise-coloured plastic.
Silver Omani necklace with glowing red bicycle reflector.

Plastics in ethnic jewellery: Bakelite

Bakelite, a type of plastic invented in the early 1900s, was widely used in jewellery production in the early 20th century. Its popularity was due to its durability, versatility, and affordability. It could be shaped, carved, and molded into various forms, making it an ideal material for creating intricate and colorful designs.

So instead of thinking about this material as ‘fake’, I feel the use of bakelite in traditional jewellery highlights the intersection of technology and culture and tells us about the changing social and economic circumstances of that time. It shows how people adapted to new materials and incorporated them into their jewellery.

The bright red of the bakelite in the Kabyle brooch shown above (click to enlarge it) shows both the fascination for this new material, and works miracles for the wearer!

Plastics in ethnic jewellery: Imitation amber

One thing these plastics were used for, is to imitate the costly amber. Amber was valued for a number of reasons, including magical ones: a little more about that is here.

An example is the woman from el-Arish, shown in the photo above (click to enlarge it). Around her neck, visible behind the string of Maria Theresia Thalers her child is playing with, she is wearing a necklace made of dark beads: most likely these are the imitation amber beads in a dark cherry hue as shown in the image.

They also exist as proper amber imitations in an opaque amber colour, and are now rare themselves as they are no longer made. ⁠[1]

Plastics in ethnic jewellery: Colour over material

Plastic is also the material chosen for the Bedouin ring, shown above (click to enlarge it) where a piece of battered and damaged plastic has been carefully set in silver. Judging by the wear, it has kept its wearer safe from harm for a lifetime.

That is by virtue of its colour: these bluegreen shades are considered particularly effective against the evil eye, just like turquoise. This piece of plastic serves that purpose perfectly: it is the colour that matters here, not the material.

A plastic bicycle reflector against evil

A wonderful example of jewellery with apotropaic properties is the silver necklace from Oman shown above. It combines several well-known principles of magical protection, and adds to those a reinforcement of its own.

The colour red is the dominant colour when it comes to averting evil, and is present here in three splashes of vibrant red.

Three is a number that is regarded as beneficial, as it represents the trinities of life: man, woman and child, along with birth, life and death.

The dangles confuse evil with their unpredictable swaying and the sound of their jingling, while the tiny crescent moons bring prosperity and growth. ⁠

But it is the center piece that steals the show: a plastic bicycle reflector. Its reflecting capacity averts evil even more on top of all of the above: imagine how these would shine when they catch a ray of sunlight! ⁠I especially like this necklace as it shows that purpose beats material in some cases: there is nothing precious about a plastic reflector, and yet it may save your life from both evil forces and approaching traffic.⁠

Plastic in ethnic jewellery: a wonderful amulet

So you see how plastic may function as amulet in a range of ways. It can be a substitute for something else (such as imitation amber or coral), it can function as fully equal to other materials because of its colour, and it can even be the material of choice precisely because of its own capacities. In all cases, it would have been as real to the wearer as other materials: it is the desired effect that counts!

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References

[1] See the chapter on imitation amber in King, R. 2022 Amber. From Antiquity to Eternity.

Would you like to quote this article? Please do! Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.

Food ceremonies & amulets

Food ceremonies & amulets

by | Magic & Amulets

magic of food

Food ceremonies, rituals and amulets

Updated Jan 1, 2024

Not turning this jewellery blog into a foodie feed…but did you know there is a strong relation between food, ritual and personal adornment in North Africa and Southwest Asia? I have rounded up several examples of jewellery and adornment to show you how food and personal adornment are interrelated.

Three silver amulets in the shape of pea pods, from Tetuan, Morocco
Silver and coral necklace from Libya, showing two fish in the central pendant. These were believed to bring good luck and abundance.
Silver and goldwashed bracelet called habbiyat, 'peas'
Two Palestinian necklaces of clove, red glass beads and mother of pearl spacers.

Food and magic: a connection on many levels

Food is something we depend on. We can’t live without it, and so it is hardly surprising to find the importance of growing, raising and preparing of food resonating in the realm of magic and amulets. This is often related to growth, wealth, health and having children.

The opposite is also true: poisonous foods or animals feature in magic, too, with the aim of fighting evil influences.

Another link between food and magic is medicine: many ingredients used for food preparations are also found in medicine, a field originally closely linked to magic.

There are countless rituals involving beans, sprouts and such aimed at becoming pregnant or keeping spirits away from the house.

And everyday acts from the culinary domain take on new meaning in ritual, such as the pounding of coffee beans [1] referring to sexual relations. Yes, you read that right….do check the reference with this, the story is amazing!

Back to jewellery: that close relation between food and magic can take material form in personal adornment in several ways. First, there are actual edible things that may be worn on the body, but you could also think of imitations of those, both lifelike and in abstract shapes, the names given to jewellery elements and even more indirect connections such as through colours. So how does that work?

Food & amulets: actual ingredients

Starting with actual ingredients, to protect children in Egypt, a small pouch filled with bread and salt would be worn as an amulet to keep spirits away, a practice recorded up until the last century. [2]

A naming ceremony for a baby among the Bisharin, living in Sudan, had visiting guests write down a name suggestion and put that in a dish containing milk, bread and sugar. [3]

The fragrance of cloves was believed to be an aphrodisiac throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia, and so adornment made of cloves was regarded as a powerful means to attract the love of a husband.

Throughout Southwest and Central Asia, red chili peppers are dried and strung on cord to protect houses from evil spirits; tiny peppers in plastic are strung in between evil eye beads (see more about those here) as a powerful amulet. Here, the general idea is that just like peppers irritate your eyes (ever rubbed your eyes after chopping a pepper? You’ll know what I mean…!), they will irritate the evil eye as well.

Food & amulets: imitations of food

Those plastic mini peppers are an example of imitations of food. Another example are silver amulets from the area of Tetuan, Morocco, in the shape of peas in a pod. It’s the first image in the photo gallery with this article: click on the image to enlarge it, they are something special!

This amulet is called arhaz, and it was believed to be bring good luck and fertility to the wearer. [4] The amulets are very recognizable as pea pods, with a slight curve and bulging peas inside. What makes them stand out as an amulet is visible on the example on the right: the zigzag-border is characteristic of amulets and talismans.

Each pod is shown with 5 peas. Renderings of the number 5 in jewellery are known to bring good luck in general, as 5 is the most powerful number. (click here to read more on numerology in jewellery) That number is repeated again on each pea of the pendant on the left, where each pea is further decorated by 4 intersecting lines and a square in the centre. That is also a rendering of the number 5. This repetition of the number 5 and the imagery of the pea pod bursting with fat peas is what would bring good luck and abundance to the wearer.

The peas in the pod also serve as fertility amulet. That is a rather obvious metaphor of course, and one that is used in many cultures.

Food & amulets: names and shapes

In other cases, the relation is more subtle. Oak leaf lettuce (ifrawen ukerush) is rendered in the shape of Kabyle pendants from Algeria, and other pendants from the same region are named after melon seeds (iyes afeqqus). [5]

These are regular pendants on necklaces. They have not separately created as amulet, but still work their magic: melon seeds, as there are so many of them, are often associated with fertility beliefs as well.

Sometimes it is the visual similarity between food and jewellery that is reflected in the name: the habbiyat (chickpea) bracelets derive their name from the many granules on them. One example is shown above: click on the image to enlarge it.

Click here to read more on a special amulet that is actually named after food, which no one seems to remember…!

Food & amulets: embroidery, motifs and colours

Food finds its way into personal adornment in other forms as well.

In Siwa Oasis, Egypt, the colours chosen for embroidery on dresses, pants, shawls and scarves all reflect the colour palette of the dates that Siwa is famous for. The life cycle of date productions directs the rhythm of everyday life in the oasis, and so the embroidery on personal adornment brings that cycle of growth and abundance to the wearer. Palm branches themselves form part of the pattern repertoire.

The Palestinian tatreez elements of wheat stalks, coffee beans, pomegranates and more all form part of the connection with the land [6].

In some cases, it’s impossible to tell whether a magic connotation of an element is related to food, or that that is entirely by coincidence. Doves and fish for example are featured often in jewellery, and are related to blessings, happiness and abundance, but they appear equally often in delicious regional dishes.

The power of everyday life

That close connection does show one thing, though: forms and shapes chosen in personal adornment are rooted in everyday life to a level where distinguishing ‘magic’ as something different from regular existence is impossible.

Incorporating food themes in jewellery shows how its wearers aligned themselves with the rhythm of nature, with the endless cycles of sowing and harvesting, the same cycle that is at the basis of many amulets.

It is in motifs like these that we not only catch a glimpse of the most fervent wishes of women, but also of how they thought of themselves: connected with their world.

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More on amulets, charms and magic in jewellery? Download your free e-book here, read other posts, or enroll in the e-course on Magic of Jewellery!

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References

[1] See a fascinating article about female Bedouin poetry here, including the reference to pounding coffee beans.

[2] Hansen, N. 2006, Motherhood in the Mother of the World, pp. 222.

[3] Hansen 2006, p. 241.

[4] These three silver amulets are in the collection of the Museu Etnològic I de Cultures del Món in Barcelona, where I photographed them on their Montjuïc location.

[5] Camps Fabrer, H. 1990. Bijoux berbères d’Algérie, Edisud, pp. 44-45.

[6] Ghnaim, W. 2018. Tatreez and Tea.

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only.

‘Seven Eyes’ amulets

‘Seven Eyes’ amulets

by | Magic & Amulets

an enigmatic amulet

Seven Eyes/Saba Uyun

Updated Feb 11, 2025

What is that blue disc with holes from the Arab world? It exists in a wide region, also outside the Arab world, and is a common sight in Iraq, Iran, Kurdistan, Palestine, Jordan and Syria, but also in Egypt. You’ll find these blue pierced discs in jewellery, as separate pendants, and in large sizes on walls of homes. They are called saba ‘uyun, or ‘seven eyes’. But what are they? This blog article gives the most complete overview to date on these blue amulets!

Several blue faience amulets called saba uyun, Lochscheibe or Seven Eyes

Amulets against the evil eye

First, here is what we do know. Saba ‘uyun amulets are considered powerful against the evil eye. They are pinned with regular glass eye beads on children’s caps and clothing, or strung with alum to protect both children and animals.

That combination with alum is also often seen in Jordan, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, and reinforces the power of the blue disc against the evil eye: eye beads among the Bedouin of the Negev desert are often strung with alum, and the idea is that alum attracts the glance of the evil eye before it can look at the child. [1]

Older amulets of this type are made of faience. This is created from a mixture of sand, soda, lime, and water. Copper oxide is added to produce the green-blue colour, and all of this is then formed into a paste, from which beads and other amulets could be made. The amulets would then be heated, which created the brilliant blue glaze.

More recent variations of the discs however have been made of plastic, and even blue buttons have been used in jewellery as a stand-in for this amulet. See a few examples from around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in the gallery below.

What does the name ‘Seven Eyes’ mean…?

There is some confusion over its name: why are they even called saba uyun, when they don’t always have 7 holes…? That is most likely because of the importance of the number 7 and its association with the planetary spheres.

Click here to read more about numerology in jewellery.

Click here to see more about astrology in jewellery.

The origin of the Seven Eyes amulet

And then there is what we don’t know. That is quite a lot! [2] Although this amulet is widely used throughout large parts of Southwest Asia, there is surprisingly little written about it. You’ll find them depicted in many jewellery books, as they are very common elements in jewellery, but with very little to no text of their own.

Peter W. Schienerl is one of the very few who discussed them at length in his article on Roman pendants from Egypt, and he believed this amulet to be a descendant from a Roman amulet in the form of a faience disc with seven coloured dots. [3]. He called it a Lochscheibe (which is German for a disc with holes in it), and never mentioned its vernacular name.

I am working on a hypothesis that these derive from Late Period Egyptian Eye of Horus-amulets, a notion I elaborate on in my book Desert Silver and in the e-course on amulets. Other suggestions for its origin are that it stems from ancient Mesopotamia, but so far no one who told me this has been able to back this up with actual evidence (if you have real facts to share on that, I’d love to hear more! Thank you in advance!).

Seven Eyes amulets in archaeology: ancient ancestors

So far, I have traced archaeological examples of this blue amulet in the collection of Egyptian antiquities in Bonn, but these are undated [4], and in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York [5].

This last one [see it here] is said to have been excavated between 1935 and 1948 in Nishapur, Iran. That would make it date back to the 8th-13th century.

But I can’t help but wonder….how certain can we be that this is actually that old? According to the description, hundreds of Iranian workers excavated at the site: could one of them perhaps have lost it?

However, another example, dating to ca 800 BCE, is in the Yale Peabody Museum, where it can be seen on the far right of this bead timeline. According to the description (which is available to read when clicking on the bead – fantastic), this is one of a group of beads that has been said to come from Zagros Mountains: ‘said to come’, so again, uncertain.

Donkey beads, Lochscheibe, Saba Uyun: what are these beads?

In fact, there is so little known about this amulet that you’ll have a hard time searching for older examples online. Looking for Lochscheibe gets you lots of German industrial sites, searching for saba ‘uyun gets you nothing, although sebaa does come back with a few results.

In the Quai Branly museum, one is labeled as ‘baby amulet’ and described as a ‘blue button’ [6] Two amulets from Jordan  in the same collection, sporting the saba ‘uyun amulets, are labeled as ‘amulet’ and described as ‘blue bead’: they were used to protect home and cribs. [7]

In Farsi they are called chasm-more [8], and they are also known as ‘donkey beads’ in English. [9]

Every collection has a different name for these, and those names can vary even within the same registration system.

So here you see why using correct names for things is so incredibly important: I am sure there is lots of information on these amulets somewhere, but because their vernacular name is not used, its history and cultural meaning have become scattered across several languages and descriptions.

That makes them pretty much untraceable, and that brings me to my other point: collecting  things is one thing, but if we fail to collect and share the information that goes with them, we’re stuck with a pile of things we can’t really place.

Modern-day Iraqi amulets

Modern-day productions in enamel, plastic and other materials can be found by searching for ‘Iraqi blue amulet’, or ‘seven eyes amulet’. It is an old, and slightly enigmatic piece of jewellery, but it is still incredibly popular!

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Where can I learn more about Middle Eastern amulets?

More on amulets, charms and magic in jewellery? Download your free e-book here, read other posts, or enroll in the e-course on Magic of Jewellery!

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References

[1] Abu Rabia 2005, p. 248

[2] Kriss, R. & H. Kriss-Heinrich, 1962. Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam. Band II. Amulette, Zauberformeln und Beschwörungen. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.

[3] Schienerl, P.W. 1982. Crescent to Cross. Roman and Byzantine Glass Pendants from Egypt, in: Ornament Magazine 6 (2). This is also the explanation Alfred Janata uses in his book Schmuck in Afghanistan, p. 62. Janata includes a mention of ‘a medieval work on magic that describes a similar item, called kawkab (planet)’, but without reference.

[4] There are two on display in the Agyptisches Museum der Universität Bonn when I last visited a few years ago, but they do not have any other provenance than Egypt and are not dated.

[5] Accession number 48.101.222.119

[6] Inventory number 71.1967.100.113

[7] Inventory number 71.1967.100.5 and 71.1967.100.4

[8] A. Janata, Schmuck in Afghanistan, p. 62

[9] As explained to me by Patricia Deany in 2023

The Bedouin Silver blog gives credit where credit is due! Transparent referencing and citing sources helps us all grow. Would you like to do the same and quote this article? Here’s how:

S. van Roode, [write the title as you see it above this post], published on the Bedouin Silver website [paste the exact link to this article], accessed on [the date you are reading this article and decided it was useful for you].

The Bedouin Silver Jewellery Blog: Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. Her main field of expertise is jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, as well as archaeological and archaeological revival jewellery. She has authored several books on jewellery, and obtained her PhD at Leiden University on jewellery, informal ritual and collections. Sigrid has lectured for the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Turquoise Mountain Jordan, and many others. She provides consultancy and research on jewellery collections for both museums and private collections, teaches courses and curates exhibitions. She is not involved in the business of buying and selling jewellery, and focuses on research, knowledge production, and education only. Sigrid strongly believes in accessibility of knowledge, and aims to provide reliable and trustworthy content: that’s why the Bedouin Silver blog provides references and citations.

Beautiful Bodies

Beautiful Bodies

by | Reviews

gender and corporeal aesthetic in the past

Beautiful Bodies

Body aesthetic is increasingly understood as much more than just ornamentation. How we treat our bodies, dress our hair, inscribe our skin, apply make-up and fragrance as well as how we clothe and adorn ourselves is highly informative about how we see ourselves and how we would like others to see us. But how to approach this sense of self for past societies? Beautiful Bodies explores how archaeological studies may shed light on both beauty and gender, two highly discussed topics.

Beautiful Bodies is a series of articles resulting from a conference session on the same topic. As such, this is an academic read, that will bring you up to speed with current theory and thought about the relation of gender and body aesthetic, explored through archaeological material. Archaeology uses things and how they were found to attempt to explore the past, and this is also very applicable to grasping past notions of concepts like beauty and gender. Because, as the editor Uros Matic explains in the introduction, ‘beauty’ is achieved by doing something: putting your hair up in a certain way, applying make-up, wearing a certain outfit. For doing, you will need materials and tools, and those are what archaeologists ultimately find. The introductory chapter, like the last chapter, serves to provide context for the case studies in this book, and as such covers a few basics. It goes over how the social construct of ‘beauty’ is inevitably indicative of a class society, how it may be achieved in gendered spaces or through gendered acts, and how it can lead to racism and excluding: whoever does not conform to socially accepted beauty standards is often an outsider, and that sadly still holds true today.

The nine chapters that follow are in chronological order, starting out with an examination of aesthetic leadership by Queen Puabi in ancient Mesopotamia. Its author Helga Vogel considers not only the materials and colours of her jewellery and dress, but also their weight, as presented by Kim Benzel in her PhD-thesis. That weight (imagine up to 4 kg of jewellery) might have had ‘a significant impact on the physical embodiment of queenhood and her self-perception of being queen’. (p. 38) There is much to ponder about Puabi’s physical appearance and the significance attributed to her dress and adornment, which reminded me of the essay by Josephine Verduci in the Routledge Handbook of the Senses of the Ancient Near East: she points out how ‘multiple modes of experience can be working in unison’ (p. 137), and I imagine the sensory overload of Queen Puabi’s presence to do just that.

Pharaonic Egypt is presented in two chapters. Uros Matic considers how grooming activities for men were carried out in public places, for all to see, while women seem to have preferred their body-care to be carried out in private. While that points to a gender system behind beauty treatments (p. 62) and the use of gendered spaces, it got me thinking about what else this gender-defined time was used for: grooming, obviously, but how did that activity set the scene for others? What did women talk about in private, what was the point of men grooming in public? Could a point be made that female grooming acts might not just be beautification, but constituted a transformation, a rite de passage of sorts in themselves? His observation that Egyptology tends to create an image of ancient Egypt, populated by beautiful people (p. 58) is particularly noteworthy, as this adds another layer to our view of gender and beauty in the past: our own filters. The next chapter by Kira Zumkley focuses on a mystery grooming tool found in burials of both men and women, in elaborate and simpler contexts. She proposes this to be a tool for wig maintenance, and that is fascinating to me in relation to recent research on hair in ancient Egypt: excavations in Amarna have revealed the dressing of the hair of the dead by means of extensions and with head cones. Could bringing such a tool along with you have a particular agency in the context of an afterlife?

Hairstyles also are discussed in the chapter on the Aegean, where Filip Frankovic demonstrates that during the Bronze Age, social affiliation was based on age, before it shifted to gender: changes in hairstyle reveal a changing self-perception. Another layer of identification is explored for ancient Athens by Isabelle Algrain, which I found to be intriguing. Besides heteronormativity, she argues, politonormativity was a determining factor: status associated with male or female values mattered first and foremost in the context of citizenship (p. 173). Here, society defines who we are, before gender does.

Wanting to belong to a different social group is reflected in the use of mirrors, found in burials in the Roman province of Moesia Superior. Vladimir Mihajlovic argues that mirrors have been found with both male and female individuals, who were not necessarily Roman citizens. In self-fashioning themselves as such though, they attempted to perform their desired status into being: an ancient equivalent of ‘fake it ‘till you make it’. Exactly the opposite seems to have been the case in Viking-age Scandinavia. Bo Jensen makes the interesting point that ‘beauty’ was not something to achieve or generate: beauty was something everyone apparently possessed as long as there were no flaws, such as scars or marks. The last chapter deals with beauty ideals in Qajar Iran, where Maryam Dezkhamkooy takes us through the varying beauty ideals from genderless beauty to notably gender-differentiated preferences: an enriching read.

Beautiful Bodies is an exploration in both objects and ideas in the context of past gender norms. Not all chapters include all elements, but this entire book provides plenty of food for thought on how we might approach the past by carefully going over some of the most personal objects that have survived: those with which we create who we are and that in turn shape our world. It will get you thinking about how fashioning the self is related to the gendered structures of any given society, sometimes even shaping those, to manifesting our wishes and aspirations, and even to creating a particular afterlife – definitely a recommended read!

Beautiful Bodies. Gender and Corporeal Aesthetics in the Past. by Uros Matic (ed). Oxbow Books, 2022

305 pages, with B/W illustrations, in English. Available with the publisher and online.

The book was received as review copy by the publisher.

More books on personal adornment, jewellery & archaeology? See my picks for you here, or join the Jewellery List to get new book tips in your inbox. You could also dive right in and take the e-course on 5,000 years of jewellery: bringing the past to life on your screen!

Sigrid van Roode

Sigrid van Roode is an archeologist, ethnographer and jewellery historian. She considers jewellery heritage and a historic source. She has authored several books on jewellery from North Africa and Southwest Asia, and on archaeological jewellery. Sigrid has lectured for the Society of Jewellery Historians, the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center, among many others. She curates exhibitions and teaches online courses on jewellery from North Africa & Southwest Asia.