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148 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
similar
lapis lazuli, with which it was often confused in ancient times. Ibn
Beithar states that if properly prepared it would not provoke nausea,
as was otherwise the case. It was said to cause a very abundant
evacuation of bile and must have been regarded as an efficient remedy
for the bilious disorders so general in warm climates.73
A
"blue amulet" against vertigo, melancholia and epilepsy could be made
up of the following ingredients: shavings from an elk's horn and from a
human skull, to be reduced to a fine powder, the excrement of a peacock, white agate, lapis lazuli or lapis Armenus, of
which enough was to be used to give the required sky-blue tint. The
whole mass was then to be softened by the addition of gum traga-canth,
and formed into heart-shaped tablets, which were to be dried out in the
air, and then smoothed on a turning-lathe. These amulets were to be
worn attached to the neck or the arm, sometimes they were enclosed in a
little receptacle of silver or of red sandal-wood and suspended from
the neck.74
In Papyrus 3Ό27 of the Berlin Museum, a record that dates from about the fifteenth century b.c., and
appears to be contemporaneous with the celebrated Papyrus Ebers, we
have directions for the curative use of three stones as amulets;
namely, lapis lazuli, malachite (Amazon stoneÎ) and, probably, red
jasper. The interpretation of the text offers considerable difficulty,
but it seems that the stones were worked into the form of beads and
then strung on a cord and suspended from a sick child's neck. Thereupon
a formula was recited, calling upon the disease to pass
71
Ibn el Beithar, " Traité des simples ; " French trans, of L. Ledere in
" Notices et Extraits de MSS. de la Bib. Nat.," etc., vol. xxiii, Pt.
5, Paris, 1877, pp. 418, 419.
" " Der Römisch Kaiserlichen Akademie der Naturforscher . . . Abhandlung, Siebenter Theil," Nürnberg, 1759, p. 90.
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