The evil eye: Origin, Meaning and When It Actually Started

Q: How old is this superstition?

First recorded: Sumerian texts, roughly 3000 BC. The oldest belief in this set by a wide margin, appearing in Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Jewish and Islamic sources independently. The idea is consistent across all of them: envy directed at someone can harm them, particularly the admired and the newly fortunate.

When it actually starts

How old is this one

First recorded Sumerian texts, roughly 3000 BC

That makes it about 5,026 years old

Rank by age 1 oldest of 40 dated here

Category Protection

Searched 5,040 a month

The oldest belief in this set by a wide margin, appearing in Sumerian, Greek, Roman, Jewish and Islamic sources independently. The idea is consistent across all of them: envy directed at someone can harm them, particularly the admired and the newly fortunate.

What people say

A look of envy causes misfortune; blue glass charms deflect it.

What is going on

The one superstition here that describes something socially real — envy exists and does affect how people are treated. The charm is the fictional part, not the problem it addresses.

Where it applies. Mediterranean, Middle East, South Asia, Latin America. Strongest continuous tradition of any belief on this list.

Other protection superstitions

Horseshoe over the door 260/mo

Recorded around the same time

The evil eye is the 1st oldest of the 40 dated superstitions here. Of those, 6 are younger than a century and 5 predate the common era.

Spilling salt 500 BC House superstitions 500 BC Death omens 500 BC Sailing superstitions 500 BC

First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →