Bonner, SMA – PDF, 245.

like an acclamation, νικᾷ ὁ δεῖνα, “the god X is victorious.”⁴⁹ In another example a trophy and a thunderbolt, set opposite each other in the lower field, hint at the power of the strange composite demon that occupies the center of the design.⁵⁰ Yet there are indications that the trophy may sometimes have been treated as a thing divine in itself, or at least partaking of the sacred character that pertained to a cult image. On a green jasper my collection the center of the field, a horizontal oval, is occupied by a figure of the pantheos with four wings and bird 0.il, the right by Osiris as a mummy, and the left — just as on a complete equality with the other two — by a trophy, the post of which seems to rest on, or to be thrust through, three snakes (D. 374). Reverse, bainchoooch Iao abrasax. A very small much-weathered lapis also my possession, shows nothing on the obverse but a trophy, and on the reverse the one word Iao (D. 376).

A more elaborate amulet in the British Museum shows at the foot of the trophy a lion, under which lies a man with his face down.⁵¹ On one side is Ιαω, on the other εμι (εἰμί?). There is also a long inscription round the margin, but it is unintelligible. On the reverse are the cock-headed anguipede, a Gorgon's head (?), and another inscription.

On a haematite in the Cabinet des Médailles a trophy is set over a thunderbolt, and a star rests upon the helmet; reverse, νειχαροπληξ.⁵² Another stone in the same collection shows a running lion at the foot of the trophy, and stars and apparently disconnected letters in the field (D. 375).⁵³

It is possible that the uncouth trophy, an object foreign to Egyptian custom, may have been accepted by some ignorant people as a kind of outlandish idol or fetish, and so a thing full of magical power. Such a notion, when it had once taken root, would naturally lead to other developments of the symbol, tending to give it more human characteristics. In this way one may perhaps explain a strange chalcedony pendant in the British Museum (56192), which has on the obverse face what may be briefly described as a human-headed cross. Under this design is the word νιχαροπληξ, as on one of the Paris examples; above is a series of vowels, and an inscription of unknown meaning encircles the whole. Such a form may have evolved from a trophy, in which the upright post has a helmet on its top, and the crossbar holds an armless cuirass.⁵⁴ Some Byzantine bronze pendants mentioned the previous chapter have as their reverse type a cross surmounted by a bust of Christ; but it is doubtful whether that type was developed early enough to account for the chalcedony in the British Museum.

⁴⁹ Cabinet des Médailles, Chabouillet 2221. Illustration in Matter, Pl. 8, 7. D. 377.

⁵⁰ De Ridder 3470.

⁵¹ 56065.

⁵² Chabouillet 2222, where the object above the helmet is described as the letter X. Matter, Pl. 8, 12, shows it as a star.

⁵³ I have not the number of this object, which seems to have been added to the collection after Chabouillet's catalogue was published.

⁵⁴ The armless herms may also have contributed to the development of the type. The stone just described is illustrated in King, Gnostics, Pl. C 1.

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