Talismans

Talismans were used by the Chaldaean magicians to prevent the attacks of evil spirits, injury from wicked sorcery, poison, etc. We give the following translation of part of the seventeenth formula on the tablet found in the library of the royal palace at Nineveh: "Two double bands of white cloth upon the bed on the platform as a talisman if he binds on the (right) hand, two double bands of black cloth if he binds on the left hand:" The possessor of this talisman was assured that all evil spirits and other ills would leave him, never to return. These talismans were of different kinds. First of all there were those which consisted' of bands. of cloth, covered with certain written formulae, and were fastened to the furniture or the garments, like the phylacteries of the Jews. There were also AMULETS SEE AMULETS (q.v.). Vessels, containing food and drink for the gods and genii, were placed in the apartments as protecting talismans. The daemons were represented by figures of such hideous forms that it was believed that they were only to be shown their own image to cause them to flee away. In the museum of the Louvre is a bronze statuette of Assyrian workmanship, a figure of a horrible daemon in an upright position, with the body of a dog, the feet of an eagle, the claws of a lions the tail of a scorpion, the head of a skeleton but half decayed, and adorned with goat's horns, the eyes still remaining, and, lastly, four great expanded wings. See Lenormant, Chaldaean Magic, page 850; Volbeding, Index Programmatum, page 160; Thomson, Land and Book, 1:140, 217; comp. SEE CHARM.