Bonner, SMA – PDF, 225.

On an ironstone pendant in the Newell collection a male figure stands clad in a long tunic and a mantle, which is wound round his body and shows its free end at the left (D. 339). The head of this man is encircled with a nimbus; his right hand is raised, holding a circlet from which two slender pointed objects project upward, his left holds a roll or a thick baton. Opposite him is a snake, its head on a level with the man's, its mouth open; there is a star just above it. Behind the snake is the word βοηθι, behind the man, τιυξι.⁶⁵ The human figure might be a Christian saint; yet the nimbus is given to some pagan deities, notably Harpocrates and Chnoubis, and βοήθει, though a common Christian prayer, is also found with representations of heathen gods. The word τιυξι has no known meaning. The reverse is divided into two registers. Above are three lines of what seems to be a Semitic inscription, as yet unread; below, Ουριηλ Σαβαω βοηθι, and a character like an elongated figure 8 lying on its side, possibly a suggestion of a magical knot. Is the obverse design purely pagan, or does it reflect the ideas of a heretical Christian sect to whom the serpent was a sacred symbol?

The same question suggests itself in connection with a pendant in the Michigan collection which came from Syria (D. 340). Here again at the right is a long-robed person with nimbus, holding out in both hands an uncertain object of elliptical form towards a large snake which faces him. On the head of this snake is an ornament like an equilateral triangle standing on its apex; behind it, a star. Between the man and the snake is a small altar; below, in the exergue, a winged disk. Three lines of writing, apparently in a cryptographic alphabet, are inscribed on the reverse.

A once highly polished serpentine in the Michigan collection is also enigmatic (D. 341). A man, nude except for kilt and boots, stands to front with his head to left. His left hand holds a small pail, his right upholds a tall cross, the horizontal of which is not set exactly at right angles to the upright. On his head there seems to be a short upright ornament. The field is full of minute letters, and there are also a crescent and, perhaps, some stars; the shallow cutting and worn condition of the surface render such details uncertain. The letters that can be read make no sense and are probably parts of magical words. The reverse has the common legend Iao Sabao Abrasax. Nothing but the cross suggests Christian influence. The symbol may have been simply appropriated and applied to pagan magic; such a procedure is not incredible in this syncretistic age.

Before leaving the subject of Christian amulets, some attention is due to an important group belonging to the British Museum, which, unfortunately, cannot be shown in illustrations under present conditions, though all are interesting enough to deserve it. One (56473) is a bronze pendant which might be classed as Jewish except for the free use of crosses, since the inscriptions are of Hebrew origin. Obverse, Ιαωθ Σαβαθ Αδωναει, with a cross above and three below; reverse, ὁ ὤν (Exodus 3, 14), with cross above and below.

⁶⁵ Compare τυξευι under the design of the sun-god in his chariot, on a gem of the Metropolitan collection (D. 71); King, Gnostics, p. 157.

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