“This copper plaque was purchased in Egypt, probably near Luxor.  In the 1840s it was donated to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and eventually made its way into the Egyptian collection of the Louvre.  It is a “pattern-book” originally designed to be hung on the wall of a studio in order to remind an artisan how to make amulets for eye-disease (this is the lizard image), stomachache and other problems by carving or drawing the six designs and the texts that accompany them.  These designs date back to the Roman period and were altered at some point by a Copt who suppressed some of the more troubling pagan details (e.g. animal headed gods) and replaced them with some Christian ides — i.e. Horus treading on the crocodiles becomes Christ treading on a lion and a snake as he does in Psalm 90.14.  The version in the Louvre is even later: the Arabic inscription in the top left corner of the obverse tells us that the date of its manufacture was in the 8th or 9th century CE.”

-Professor C. Faraone