Anti-Cancer Amulet Found in Turkey

ISPARTA, TURKEY—According to a report in The Jerusalem Post, an amulet dated to the fourth century A.D. has been uncovered in southwestern Anatolia’s ancient city of Pisidian Antioch. Mehmet Özhanli of Süleyman Demirel University said that the amulet was discovered near the site of a church and is thought to have been worn as a necklace. One side of the stone is inscribed with the figure of a crab, while the other bears the name of a girl and her parents. He also explained that karkinos, the Greek word for “crab,” was used to describe cancerous tumors by the second-century a.d. physician Galen, who suggested that the blood vessels found around cancerous tumors resembled crab legs. Özhanli thinks that a father had the necklace made and gave it to his ill daughter to wear as a healing talisman. To read about the earliest known case of metastatic cancer found on a man who died around 1200 b.c., go to "Ancient Oncology."