Nazar Boncuk - Evil Eye

A couple of my friends have visited Turkey (at separate times) & they have vouched for the exotic beauty of the place. One of them got me a key-ring from there, a beautiful blue glass “evil eye”, which prompted me to look up about it.

In Turkey it’s called Nazar Boncuk. Once a Boncuk is found cracked, it has to be immediately replaced with a new one. This charm usually looks like an eye set on a blue background.

Apparently, evil eye beads go back thousands of years with the earliest written references to occuring on Sumerian clay tablets dating to the third millennium BC. Agate beads of exceptional quality, worn to protect the wearer from the influence of the evil eye, were also discovered in royal Sumerian graves at Ur.

In Turkey, it is the most common item of decoration. You will find it in their houses, in their cars and worn by people. It would always be found pinned on to the clothes of babies. Office buildings and even Turkish aircrafts have the Boncuk emblazoned on them.

And it is now quite the rage amongst Indian college-goers. They have it on their wrists as bracelets, they carry their car/bike keys on them, they have badges pinned to their college satchels… and so on. You even see beads of different colours co-ordinated with the clothes that they are wearing. Even I had picked up a bracelet with

blue beads in different hues strung together.

In any case, the bead is believed to protect you from “buri nazar”.