Ojo Turco

The ojo turco — Turkish eye, also called the nazar boncuğu in Turkish — is the distinctive blue glass eye bead that originated in Anatolia but has been enthusiastically adopted throughout the Mediterranean world, including Spain and southern Europe, as a protective talisman against the evil eye. The bead's concentric blue circles evoke an eye looking outward — deflecting the gaze of envy back toward its source before it can cause harm.

In Spain, the ojo turco arrived through centuries of Mediterranean trade and cross-cultural exchange, settling particularly firmly in coastal communities and areas with historically strong connections to the eastern Mediterranean. Spanish artisans began producing their own versions of the blue eye bead, incorporating local craft traditions into what had been an imported form. Today the ojo turco is found throughout Spain alongside the indigenous Spanish protective traditions — the mano cornuta gesture and various saint-medal protections.

The colour blue is central to the evil eye protective tradition across the entire Mediterranean: blue eyes were considered rare and therefore potentially powerful (and potentially malevolent) in dark-eyed Mediterranean populations, making a blue eye-shaped object a kind of visual mirror that reflects the dangerous gaze away. The glass is often dark blue on the outside, medium blue in the middle, and black at the centre — a schematic eye that is simultaneously beautiful and unsettling in its direct stare.