A necklace with a figurine of the Egyptian god Pataikos has been unearthed in an excavation of the ancient city of Perre, in southeastern Turkey. The faience amulet is the largest piece on a necklace or bracelet of beads, including other apotropaic emblems like glass evil eyes. It was discovered in a 2,100-year-old chamber tomb from the Hellenistic period, and is the first representation of Pataikos to be found in Anatolia.
Pataikos was a protective god who was depicted as a bald, bow-legged dwarf, often standing on crocodiles and handling snakes. He warded off evil to aid the souls of the deceased in their voyage to the afterlife. He was a minor god, not part of the elite cadre of state-promoted deities like Osiris, Isis and Horus. There are some textual references to him, mainly on wall inscriptions and a few surviving papyri, but most of references to Pataikos are figurines and amulets. We don’t even know his Egyptian name, so little has been written about him in Egyptian sources. His apotropaic figures have been found outside of Egypt going back to the late Bronze Age (1300 B.C.), first making an appearance in Syria/Palestine then spreading to the Mediterranean islands and finally the Greek and Italian mainlands. According to Herodotus, the Phoenicians spread the worship of Pataikos around their trade routes, using him as a figurehead on their ships.
Perre was one of the largest cities of the Commagene Kingdom (163 B.C.-72 A.D.). Strategically located on the road connecting Malatya to Samosata, one of the other Commagene capitals, it served as a resting and resupply point for travelers. Commagene’s culture was a mixture of Hellenistic Greek, Persian and local Anatolian influences. Religious syncretism was part of that diversity, and deities from many pantheons were worshiped, as seen by the funerary furnishings of the tombs.
The Pataikos figure was found in a chamber tomb dubbed the Stairway of Eternity. At the bottom of rock-cut steps leading underground, the tomb was built in the hypogeus (subterranean) style and contained the remains of 14 people in different enclosures, likely members of Commagene’s elite families. One of the burial niches was flanked by carved rectangular pilasters, a rare feature not found in any of the other tombs in the Perre necropolis.
Click the Source link for more details
