Sumerian and Syrian ''Eye Idols", also known as "Spectacle Idols", 3,300—3,000 BC

[ichingcarpenter]

I find these artifacts curious and really not covered much by either alternative or mainstream anthropology/archeology






For some reason I can't copy this page from this museum but its worth reading and the major discovery was done by Agatha Christie's husband

http://www.barbier-mueller.ch/collec...e-idol?lang=en

How it ties to Gobekli Tepe


Voices of the Dead: The Strange Origins of Eye Idols

Urfa man, known formally as the Balikligöl statue, is the oldest human-size statue of a man yet discovered in the world. He is currently housed in Şanliurfa’s Archeology Museum, Southeast Turkey. Urfa man was discovered in the Old Town section of Şanliurfa, but in antiquity belongs to the same thought world of Göbekli Tepe, a site half an hour away from the museum by car.


https://www.ancient-origins.net/arti...e-idols-002707




Eye idols are scattered over a vast region bounded by southeast Turkey (Arslantepe) to the north, Syria (Hama) to the west, and southern Mesopotamia (Telloh, Uruk, Ur) and Iranian Khuzistan (Susa) to the south. These objects are characteristic of the Proto-urban period in Uruk (3700-3100 BC) during which the first cities appeared. The many different contexts in which they were discovered (domestic, ritual, funerary, dumps) cast doubt on the strictly religious function of these objects, which vary greatly in shape, material, and style.
In 1996, Catherine Bréniquet suggested dividing the idols into three types. Type 1, from Tell Brak, known as "eye idols," covers all the small engraved alabaster plaques evoking the upper part of a human body with the face reduced to the eyes and sometimes adorned with jewelry and headdresses. Type 2, the "large idols with spectacles," covers quite large bell- or trumpet-shaped pottery objects with a neck supporting two perforated circles. Some have been carefully shaped, smoothed and glazed, while others are quite summarily made. Our idol belongs to this type of "large idols with spectacles," present in northern Mesopotamia and Syria. Type 3, which groups "small idols with spectacles" shows strong similarities with Type 2, but these objects are much smaller and are all made of stone.


https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/eye-idol






I wish I could have done a better job on this post but my cheap chromebook is acting up. I don't think these were 'ancient alien' inspired but more of a

Beatles song....... ''I'm looking through you

I'm looking through you, where did you go
I thought I knew you, what did I know
You don't look different, but you have changed
I'm looking through you, you're not the same

[Deux Corbeaux]

I wonder, since many of those limestone flat figurines with drawn wide eyes are so tiny, could they have been amulets against te evil eye?


https://www.google.fr/amp/s/www.arts...e-millenia/amp


“The first accounts and artifacts related to the evil eye date back to ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Discussion of the phenomenon was found in the prayer-like inscriptions of cuneiform tablets from Sumer and Babylonia, dating between 3300 and 3000 BC. And in the nearby city of Tell Brak, amulets dubbed “eye idols” have been discovered. Small alabaster figures with large eyes, these artifacts are not known to be explicitly connected to the evil eye, but scholars, including theologian John H. Elliott (the author of four texts on the evil eye), have noted a probable correlation.”


https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn

Multiple Eye of Horus amulet

Later the eye has come to represent surveillance and the fear of being watched,

[Deux Corbeaux]

Think I'll cross-post this here, as it could be a link.....

Perhaps not an Eye Idol, but certainly eyes, the eyes of Ishtar.

"It seems reasonable to suggest that the images of Ishtar served a prophylactic function. In later times, and with much the same intent, the Great Goddess was invoked under a variety of names in prayers against the Evil Eye of jealousy and envy."
http://www.sacredthreads.net/www.sac..._evil_eye.html

Posted by Deux Corbeaux (here)


An unusual depiction of Ishtar from her temple in Ashur.


More a wall sculpture than the usual relief, it showed the goddess with a tight-fitting decorated helmet with “earphones” ( ) and wearing very distinct "goggles" that were part of the helmet.

The eye slots or “goggles” of the figurines are most interesting, because the Near East in the fourth millennium BC was literally swamped with wafer-like figurines that depicted the upper part of their deities, exaggerating(?) their most prominent feature: a conical head or helmet with big eyes, elliptical visors or goggles.

Read also https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/s...aneteng_05.htm

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