Punic amulet

This Punic (Carthaginian) pendant, made of glass paste, appeared in a large pit used as a dump in 1st c. BC, excavated near the road that communicated the Iberian city of Alon (called Alonís by ancient greeks) with the valley of Alcoy. People who dug this pit destroyed some ancient tombs, and this amulet must have been inside one of them. The amulet fell at the bottom of the pit, as if it  had been waiting there for us archaeologists to find it, two thousand years later, refusing to disappear when it was separated from the remains of its owner.

There have been found only two or three pieces like this in the Iberian Peninsula. Their finding was therefore a great surprise, because nobody expected to find such a rare piece in that pit, out of its place and its time.

It is an amulet of a certain size (5 cm.), representing Baal, identified with the Phoenician Melkart, the Greek Herakles and the Roman Hercules. He was the chief god of the Punic pantheon, and is represented by very large and open eyes, to repel any curse, especially the dreaded “evil eye”.

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Les Casetes Necropolis
Height: 50 mm; Length: 30 mm; Width.: 20 mm
Nº inv. Vilamuseu 003371