Mediterranean and Near East · Anatolia and the Aegean
Evil Eye
Also known as Nazar, Nazar boncuğu, Mati, Malocchio
A circle of cobalt, white and pale blue looks back at the world from doorways, cradles and wrists, believed to turn away the harm of an envious glance.
Across the Mediterranean and the Near East, people have long believed that an admiring or envious look can bring bad luck. The blue eye bead, called in Turkish and in Greek, looks straight back at that glance and is believed to turn it away.
Where it comes from
The belief in the evil eye is very old and very widespread. Greek and Roman writers discussed it, among them Plutarch, who devoted part of his Table Talk to the question of why certain people were said to harm others simply by looking at them. Similar ideas appear in Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, and in regions from Spain to India.
Eye beads are old too. Glassmakers in Egypt and Mesopotamia were producing beads with eye patterns by around 1500 BCE, and Phoenician, Greek and Roman traders later carried such beads around the Mediterranean. The familiar cobalt nazar is the latest chapter in a long story of watching eyes made of glass.
Today the bead is especially at home in Türkiye and Greece. Near İzmir, in villages such as Nazarköy and Görece, craftspeople still shape the beads by hand at the furnace, winding molten blue glass around a metal rod and adding the white and pale blue rings one by one. The skill is often passed down within families, and the finished beads are cooled slowly so that the glass does not crack.
What it means
The evil eye is rarely thought of as deliberate cruelty. More often it is the unintended effect of envy or excessive praise: a compliment to a beautiful baby, a new house or a good harvest, spoken without a protective blessing. The nazar is believed to catch that look before it reaches its target.
Words often go with the bead. Turkish speakers may say maşallah, “what God has willed”, when admiring something; Greeks may add a gentle mock spit, “ftou ftou”; and in Yiddish the phrase keyn eynhore asks that no evil eye should fall. These small courtesies share the same kind wish.
The bead does not judge the person who looks. It simply looks back, calmly, so that envy has somewhere else to go.
A widely shared belief holds that a nazar which cracks or breaks has done its work by absorbing a strong glance. People then thank it, so to speak, and replace it with a new one.
How it is worn and kept
- Pinned to a baby’s clothing or hung near a cradle, one of the most common gifts for newborns.
- Worn as a bracelet, pendant, ring or earrings, with the eye turned outwards.
- Hung by the front door, in a shop, from a car mirror or above a desk.
- Woven into larger hangings, or set into tiles, plates and key rings.
Because glass is fragile, it is best kept away from hard knocks and sudden changes of temperature. A soft cloth is all a glass bead needs; see caring for your talisman for more.
Variations and relatives
The evil eye has many companions. The Hamsa often carries an eye in its palm, the Neapolitan Cornicello answers the same worry with a red horn, and in many families a Red String tied on the wrist serves a similar purpose. In ancient Egypt the Eye of Horus was a different symbol, but it too watched over its wearer.
Colours vary as well. Classic nazars are cobalt blue, but modern makers add green, red, pink or gold, and some people choose a colour for its own associations. Blue remains the traditional favourite, and the one most people mean when they speak of an evil eye.
Why blue? No one can say for certain. Some suggest the cobalt and copper glazes that glassmakers mastered early, others to the belief, recorded in several regions, that pale or blue eyes were especially likely to cast the evil eye, so that a blue eye was the best one to meet it.
Wearing it with respect
For many families in Türkiye, Greece, the Middle East and beyond, the evil eye is part of everyday life and faith, woven into how people bless children and homes. Some religious teachers discourage amulets, while others see the bead as harmless custom, so views differ even within one community.
Anyone can wear a nazar. It is kindest to treat it as a gesture of good will rather than a joke, and it makes a thoughtful gift for a new baby, a new home or a friend at the start of something important. Find more talismans for protection and you will see how many cultures have tried to answer the same quiet worry.
taliaris describes beliefs and customs; it makes no claim that a talisman has an effect.