Ancient Amulet Shows Pagan Beliefs Persisted Longer After Byzantine Conquered Cyprus

An ancient amulet containing a palindrome unearthed by archaeologists in Cyprus, is questioning whether Romans really quashed pagan religious beliefs after conquests.

According to Daily Mail, amulets were used by people as charms to ward off evil. The find in Cyprus's ruined city of Nea Paphos dates to 1,500 years, during byzantine rule. The palindrome reads 'Lahweh (a god) is the bearer of the secret name, the lion of Re secure in his shrine'. The coin-shaped amulet also has images of a bandaged mummy said to represent Egyptian god Osiris, and an image of Harpocrates, the god of silence who is seen holding a finger to his lip. The amulet also shows a dog like creature called cynocephalus imitating Harpocrates.

Researchers who examined the amulet said it contained errors likely showing it was work of unskilled hands.

"It must be stated that the depiction is fairly unskilled and schematic. It is iconographically based on Egyptian sources, but these sources were not fully understood by the creator of the amulet," Joachim Sliwa of the Institute of Archaeology at Jagiellonian University in Poland, according to Discovery News.

One of the errors that Sliwa pointed out was in spelling of the palindrome. He also said that the Harpocrates should be sitting on a lotus flower and not on a stool as depicted on the amulet. Nevertheless, researchers believe that the amulet only reinforces a theory that people practised their ancient beliefs long after Christianity banished them.

"It rather seems that Christian and pagan religions coexisted in Paphos in times of amulet being in use," said another professor Ewdoksia Papuci-Wladyka.