The concept and its significance vary widely among different cultures, but it is especially prominent in the Balkans, Mediterranean and West Asia. The idea appears multiple times in Jewish rabbinic literature. Other popular amulets and talismans used to ward off the evil eye include the hamsa, while Italy (especially Southern Italy) employs a variety of other unique charms and gestures to defend against the evil eye, including the cornicello, the cimaruta, and the sign of the horns. While the Egyptian Eye of Horus is a similar symbol of protection and good health, the Greek evil eye talisman specifically protects against malevolent gazes. Similarly, the Eye-Idols (c. 8700–3500 BC) excavated at the Tell Brak Eye Temple are believed to have been figurines offered to the gods, and according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, are unrelated to a belief in the evil eye. History
Belief in the evil eye dates all the way back to at least Ancient Ugarit, as it is attested to in texts from this city (ruins in modern-day Syria). Given that the city was destroyed circa 1250BC, during the late Bronze Age collapse to never be rebuilt, the belief dates back at least to this point, and likely earlier. Later in Greek Classical antiquity, it is referenced by Hesiod, Callimachus, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, Theocritus, Plutarch, Heliodorus, Pliny the Elder, and Aulus Gellius. Peter Walcots Envy and the Greeks (1978) listed more than one hundred works by these and other authors mentioning the evil eye.
Truck owners and other public transport vehicles may commonly be seen using a small black cloth on the bumpers to prevent the evil eye. Italy
The cornicello, "little horn", also called the cornetto ("little horn", plural cornetti), is a long, gently twisted horn-shaped amulet. Cornicelli are usually carved out of red coral or made from gold or silver. The type of horn they are intended to copy is not a curled-over sheep horn or goat horn but rather like the twisted horn of an African eland or a chili pepper. A tooth or tuft of fur of the Italian wolf was worn as a talisman against the evil eye.One idea that the ribald suggestions made by sexual symbols distract the witch from the mental effort needed to successfully bestow the curse. Another is that since the effect of the eye was to dry up liquids, the drying of the phallus (resulting in male impotence) would be averted by seeking refuge in the moist female genitals. Among the ancient Romans and their cultural descendants in the Mediterranean nations, those who were not fortified with phallic charms had to make use of sexual gestures to avoid the eye. Such gestures include scratching ones testicles (for men), as well as the mano cornuta gesture and the fig sign; a fist with the thumb pressed between the index and middle fingers, representing the phallus within the vagina. In addition to the phallic talismans, statues of hands in these gestures, or covered with magical symbols, were carried by the Romans as talismans.