Nazar Boncugu
The nazar boncuğu, the blue-and-white glass bead of Turkey, is the country's most widespread protective amulet, worn as jewellery and hung in homes, cars, and workplaces, and fixed to new buildings, to ward off the evil eye. The bead, usually of blue glass with concentric white, dark blue, and black circles suggesting an eye, is made by glass blowers of the Aegean region, long centred on villages such as Görece near Izmir. The Turkish tradition treats the amulet itself as expendable: a nazar that has absorbed the envious glance is said to crack or fall, and a broken one is simply replaced with