theheadlesshashasheen

Almost final: Set-Typhon amulet by v-v-f.

“I call upon you who are in the empty air, you who are terrible, invisible, almighty, a god of gods, you who cause destruction and desolation, […] You who were driven out of Egypt and have roamed foreign lands, you who shatter everything and are not defeated.”
- [From] PDM XIV. 675 - 94. (Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. P. 232)

accusativeofexclamation

With proper credit since an improperly-credited repost seems to be going around.

theheadlesshashasheen

Thanks.

I’ll, uh, properly explain what people are looking at, since I’ve seen all manner of weird names applied to the image (and I definitely put it together, and @vvfille certainly drew it): it is Set-Typhon, the one of the Rulers of the force of ‘destruction’ in the Greek Magical Papyri. With a few notable exceptions, the God appears in curse tablets and specifically ones designed to destroy entire households, and completely devastate lives.

The two exceptions are a rite in which the god is petitioned to make the magician a ‘king of magicians,’ and empower him; and a couple of curses where the God is not called on to unleash destruction, but to protect the magician from the very malicious work that they are engaged in. In fact the string of magical names I picked for the amulet comes from such a petition to the High God (in this case a ruler of both the Underworld, and a storm God of the heavens: a “god of Gods” as the PGM and PDM call them) for protection.

Finally, his spear is pointed downwards as a sign that the God is flexing power upon upon the Terrestrial and Chthonic worlds, the two places where one most often encounters dreadful and dangerous spirits.