Time is the one constant variable in all of our lives. Minutes push by, hours pass over, and years ring around the trunks of senior trees. 1,500 years is a time scale that may seem almost immeasurable at times, but a new discovery reveals that it has been written down, recorded to a tee. An excavation near the ancient city of Nea Paphos had unearthed an amulet of such an age that inscribed written language on one side and curiously depicted both Greek and Egyptian gods on the other.
Measuring a mere 1.4in by 1.6in, the amulet has a 59-letter encryption on one side. And what's even more fascinating about this Greek lettering is that it reads the same forward as it does backwards. The literal translation of the sequence is "laweh," meaning "a god." On the flip-side of the amulet, numerous depictions of both Greek and deities, designed to protect the said wearer.
The area in which the amulet's finding is part of the ongoing project Pahos Agora Project.
"Paphos, which has been populated since the Neolithic period, was a core of the sect of Aphrodite and of Pre-Hellenic fertility divinities. Aphrodite's renowned home town was on the island of Cyprus, where her sanctuary was raised by the Myceneans in the twelfth century BC and kept on being utilized until the Roman period" project researchers involved in the discovery say. "The site is an immense archaeological region, with remnants of manors, royal residencies, theatres, forts, and tombs. These delineate Paphos' brilliant architectural and notable esteem and help broadly to our understanding of early architecture, lifestyles, and philosophy."
Two of these gods that have been noted are the Egyptian god of death, Osiris, and the Greek god of silence, Hapocrates.
"It must be stated that the depiction is fairly unskilled and schematic. It is ichnographically based on Egyptian sources, but these sources were not fully understood by the creator of the amulet," said Joachim Śliwa, a professor at the Institute of Archaeology at Jagiellonian University. "In the classic version, the cynocephalus faces Harpocrates with paws raised in adoration. We can find no justification for the cynocephalus's gesture of raising its right paw to its lips in a manner similar to Harpocrates."
These two drawings could very well depict early representations of the described gods.
In addition to these adornments, the amulet also sports a criss-cross line that wrap over the drawn characters. What's interesting about this seemingly casual addition is that the criss-crossing may indicate that these deities might be mummified together, signifying a symbiotic relationship between the two. But Sliwa also pointed out, in the aricle, that this may had just been an act of misunderstanding by the likely novice creator.
