In fact, Pierre Gravel and others even believe that the practice of highlighting the eye with eyeliner and eye make-up (a practice common throughout the world) originated as a protective ritual against the ancient, omnipotent force known as the Evil Eye:

"It may be significant that women, who are traditionally among those who have to be 'protected' against the Evil Eye, are the ones who generally wear cosmetics. It may also be that there was originally an affiliation between the two meanings of the Greek word 'cosmos'...which means both 'Universe' and 'ornament.'"

Although eye make-up, like most jewelry and cosmetics, is largely worn for aesthetic reasons today, some women, especially in Varanasi, India, still rim their eyes and the eyes of their children with lampblack as protection.

Right: Minoan faience statuette with snakes, from the palace of Knossos, Crete. c. 1600 to 1500 B.C. (3).

If you've read any of Jolique's articles, you'll know that perfume may also have sprung from similarly spiritual beginnings. The word itself offers some clues—"perfume" derives from the Latin phrase, per fumare, meaning "through smoke." Perfume's prototype, incense, was developed more than 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. For Mesopotamians, the most coveted incense (a fragrant gum resin secreted by many trees) came from the cedar of Lebanon tree. In fact, "Lebanon" gets its name from the Akkadian word, lubbunu, which means incense. Used in temples, incense was believed to attract good spirits, while keeping the foul, evil spirits at bay. Incense is still used in Catholic churches today for the same purpose.

Ancient Egyptians prepared their dead with it. "Embalming, mummifying and censing the corpse were means of preventing th[e] offensive process of decay and replacing the foul odour of death with the sweet scent of immortality," says author Constance Classen. For Egyptians incense offered the dead a mode of transcendence from earth to the heavens, where the gods were believed to "sweat incense."

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