Amulet AtlasAmulets
The things themselves: worn, buried, nailed above a door, folded into a pocket.
Ancient (19)
2700 BCE – 2 BCE
A T with a loop on top, the loop shaped like a droplet. As an amulet it is small and strung at the neck; the earliest ones are gold or electrum, the alloy of gold and…
2055 BCE – 999 CE
A squat bearded figure with a lion's face, a feathered crown, a protruding tongue and bandy legs, shown full-face when every other Egyptian god is shown in profile.
206 BCE to now
A cast bronze disc with a hole through it, shaped like a Chinese cash coin and never spendable as one.
1069 BCE – 30 BCE
A slab of stone carved with the child Horus standing on two crocodiles, gripping snakes and scorpions in his fists, and often an antelope by the horns and a lion by the…
3000 BCE to now
Small sea-snail shells, egg-shaped, glossy, with a long toothed slit down the flat underside. Strung on cord, sewn onto cloth, hung at the neck, or thrown in handfuls.
1550 BCE – 1069 BCE
A column with four flat bars stacked across its top, like a capital with too many collars. As an amulet it is small and hung at the neck; the Book of the Dead specifies…
700 BCE to now
A tube of agate, brown to black, carrying pale ivory-white patterns that were etched into the stone rather than cut: circles, ovals, squares, waves, zigzags, stripes…
100 BCE to now
A closed fist with the thumb pushed up between the index and middle fingers, carved small and drilled for a cord. In Asturias it is cut from jet; elsewhere from coral…
317 CE to now
A sheet — usually paper, sometimes cloth, sometimes a coin's face — written over in a script nobody is meant to read.
1 CE to now
A stone with a hole worn right through it by water, usually flint, usually glassy. Nobody makes one: a hagstone is found, on a beach or in a field, and a stone holed by…
1690 BCE – 664 BCE
An oval beetle, larger and heavier than the scarabs of the living, cut from a dark green or black stone — green jasper, serpentine, basalt — and usually not drilled for…
501 CE – 800 CE
A plain earthenware bowl with writing inside it. The text is inked in a spiral that starts at the rim and winds inward to the centre, most often in Jewish Babylonian…
625 BCE – 575 BCE
Two sheets of silver, tiny, rolled tight, each scratched with a passage of the Priestly Blessing from the Book of Numbers.
1000 BCE – 301 BCE
A small plaque, pierced or looped so it can hang, carrying the figure of the demon it is aimed at.
800 BCE – 63 BCE
A head, cast or carved, with a hole or a loop through the top for a cord. The face is the point: gazelle horns, human ears, a dog's muzzle, bulging eyes, wrinkled cheeks.
2000 BCE – 30 BCE
A beetle, carved or moulded, with a flat underside cut as a seal. The back shows the head, the wing case and the legs; the base carries hieroglyphs — a king's name, an…
3000 BCE – 390 CE
A hippopotamus standing upright on two legs, with a lion's limbs and paws, a Nile crocodile down her back and tail, human breasts and a pregnant belly.
1550 BCE – 30 BCE
A looped knot with two arms hanging down and a tail below — an ankh whose crossbar has drooped. Cut small and laid in the wrappings, usually on the upper torso.
2686 BCE – 641 CE
A stylised human eye with a falcon's cheek-mark curling below it, cut or moulded small enough to string at the throat.
Classical (6)
300 BCE – 399 CE
A locket on a neckchain: a round hollow pouch with something shut inside it, usually a phallus. What it was made of tracked the family's money — gold or gold foil at the…
500 BCE – 399 CE
A very thin sheet of lead with tiny letters scratched into it, then rolled, folded, or pierced through with a nail.
300 BCE – 399 CE
A phallus, worn. Usually cast in bronze, often winged, pierced or looped for a cord; also cut as finger rings, carved in relief on walls, made into lamps and into wind…
100 BCE – 399 CE
A cut stone between one and three centimetres across, engraved on both faces and often round the edge as well.
Early Modern (15)
1565 CE to now
Most often a flat pendant on a necklace — round, triangular or cross-shaped, in gold-coloured metal, its face crowded with figures and Latin words. But the class is…
1600 CE to now
A small cross woven from straw or rushes, defined by its material rather than its shape.
1308 CE – 1991 CE
An ordinary worn shoe, walled into a building where nobody will see it: up a chimney, under a floor, above a ceiling, in the roof, beside a door or window frame…
1416 CE to now
A standing figure cut from Jeju's volcanic rock, wearing a round hat, with large eyes, a closed mouth, and one shoulder set higher than the other.
1781 CE to now
A short, moustached man in Andean dress, above all a poncho, loaded to the shoulders with everything a household could want: bags and baskets of grain, food, pots…
1600 CE to now
A clover leaf with four leaflets instead of three, usually white clover, Trifolium repens. It is a mutation, not a species. Found ones are pressed flat in a book or…
201 CE to now
A written amulet: a small sheet of parchment, paper or thin metal, inscribed in Hebrew with divine and angelic names, sometimes laid out as a grid of letters or numbers…
undated
A small pouch or a small hinged case hung at the neck on the same cord or chain as a baptismal cross. Cloth for the old kind, stamped or cast metal for the kind sold…
undated
A small flat metal shape of the thing you are praying about — a leg, an eye, a heart, a lung, a kneeling man, a cow, a house, a car.
1600 CE to now
A container with a spirit in it. The container can be a ceramic vessel, a gourd, an animal horn, a shell, a cloth bundle — anything that will hold spiritually charged…
1846 CE to now
Two rowan twigs laid across each other and bound at the crossing with red thread or wool, a few inches across. A variant is a loop rather than a cross: a single withy…
452 CE to now
A stamped metal disc, 15 to 30 mm across, showing a bearded giant wading a river with a staff in one hand and a child on his shoulder. Aluminium, tin, brass, silver and…
1375 CE – 1899 CE
A shirt covered in writing. Verses from the Qur'an, the names of God, the names of prophets, or numbers, laid across the cloth in blocks and grids and roundels…
1603 CE to now
A small handmade doll of tissue paper or cloth, white, a ball of stuffing for a head with the cloth falling loose below it and a string tied round the neck.
1500 CE to now
A stoppered vessel filled with the afflicted person's urine and with sharp iron — pins, needles, nails — then hidden.
Living (15)
1900 CE to now
A cast pendant, usually silver, with a ring or loop at the top and a flared, spreading body below — sometimes a cross, more often a shape between a cross and a shield.
1800 CE to now
A small wooden figure with a large flat disc for a head, a ringed neck and a short body, usually with arms out to the sides.
640 CE to now
A small cross tattooed on the inside of the right wrist. The usual design is the Coptic cross: two bold lines of equal length crossing at right angles, each arm ending…
1700 CE to now
A small cloth pouch, worn on the body, usually at the neck. Inside: verses of the Qur'an written on pieces of paper, herbs, and a set number of small objects.
800 BCE to now
An open palm, usually made symmetrical so it has a thumb on both sides, in silver more often than anything else, historically also carved in jet. An eye is often set in…
undated
A heavily stylised fish hook, carved in bone or pounamu — the Māori term for the hard green stones, chiefly nephrite jade, found only in the South Island — and worn at…
undated
A pendant of a human figure, head tilted, hands on thigh and chest or both on the thighs, carved from pounamu and suspended on a plaited cord fastened with a loop and…
1900 CE to now
A small case on a chain, rectangular or cylindrical, holding verses of the Qur'an written on paper inside. Usually silver.
801 CE to now
Twisted white and red yarn, most often made into two small wool dolls: Pizho, the male one, mostly white; Penda, the female one, mostly red and wearing a skirt.
300 BCE to now
A strip of parchment, handwritten by a trained scribe in indelible black ink with a quill, carrying Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and 11:13–21.
1600 BCE to now
A handmade glass bead: concentric circles, or a teardrop, in dark blue, white, light blue and black, sometimes rimmed in yellow or gold.
901 CE to now
A metal case at the throat with scripture inside it. Sometimes a whole miniature Qur'an, protected by an illuminated metal cover; sometimes a single verse on paper or…
1489 CE to now
A thin scarlet or crimson thread, usually wool, tied round the wrist as a bracelet or band. That is the whole object.
901 CE to now
Writing, folded up and worn. A ta'wiz can be a paper packet in a black pouch, a scroll in a tubular pendant case, letters carved into metal, or a framed dua on a wall.
1 CE to now
Two small black leather boxes with long black straps. The arm box goes on the upper non-dominant arm and its strap winds down the forearm, round the hand and round the…
Medieval (24)
800 CE to now
A disc of wax, round or oval, with a lamb pressed into one face. The lamb carries a cross or a flag; the reverse usually takes a saint, or the name and arms of the…
1400 CE to now
A piece of jet — fossil wood, black, warm to the touch, light in the hand — cut either as a small clenched fist with the thumb pushed between the first two fingers, or…
1250 CE to now
Two small rectangles of brown wool, a few inches across, joined by two cloth bands. One rectangle sits on the chest, the bands run over the shoulders, the other…
1100 CE to now
A paper talisman drawn by a mudang, the ritual specialist of Korean vernacular religion. The figures on it are built out of Hanja, the Korean forms of Chinese logograms…
1000 CE – 1999 CE
A piece of birth membrane that comes away with a newborn and clings to the head and face — usually the thin translucent inner lining, the amnion.
600 CE to now
A hollow shape plaited from the last sheaf of a harvest: a figure, a knot, a lantern, a crown, a fan, a horseshoe.
1500 CE to now
A long strip of parchment — goat or sheep hide, soaked, dried, stretched, scraped and washed until it takes ink — painted with prayers in Ge'ez and with talismanic…
501 CE – 1299 CE
A small disc or pendant, bronze on the early Byzantine examples and lead on the medieval ones.
910 CE to now
A U of iron, drilled with nail holes, that spent its first life nailed to a hoof. As a charm it is the used one: worn thin at the toe, still carrying nail stubs, fixed…
1400 CE to now
A small carved animal, usually a llama or alpaca, cut from hard stone — the Dallas Museum of Art's Inca example is green and black — with a cylindrical hole sunk into…
1200 CE to now
A class rather than a shape. Jimat covers any object or piece of writing hung on a body, a vehicle or a building to keep its owner from harm.
1200 CE to now
An asymmetrical dagger in three parts: blade (bilah), hilt (hulu) and sheath (warangka).
1040 CE to now
A square or oblong of coloured cloth, printed from a woodblock, sewn along its top edge to a long string with others.
700 CE – 1100 CE
A small hammer worn head-down at the throat: short haft, wide splayed head, a suspension loop or ring where the handle should end.
undated
Nine stones set together in gold or silver, one for each of the nine bodies of Hindu astrology, with a ruby at the centre for the Sun.
710 CE to now
A flat talisman issued by a shrine or a temple: a sheet of paper, a thin rectangular plaque in a paper sleeve, or a wooden tablet, carrying the name of the shrine or of…
1409 CE to now
A narrow strip of printed paper drawn at random from a box at a shrine or temple, for a small offering.
undated
A carved phallus, from a couple of inches to several feet long, in wood, metal, bone, horn or ivory, usually with sacred inscriptions cut into it.
undated
A hard brown seed-stone, ridged from top to bottom, drilled and strung at the throat.
800 CE to now
A tattoo. Geometric yantra, animals and deities, set about with phrases in Pali, Khmer or Northern Thai, pricked into the skin with a long needle — traditionally a metal…
900 CE to now
A written prayer, folded small and shut inside something. In South Asia the container is usually a flat or tubular metal case on a black cord at the neck or tied to the…
1200 CE to now
A tube. A thin sheet of metal or a strip of palm leaf is inscribed with yant — sacred geometry and Pali phrases — then rolled tight into an elongated scroll and bound…
undated
A small metal plaque, base metal or precious, with an image embossed on it: a heart, an eye, a hand, a leg, a whole kneeling figure, a house, a baby, a ship. A ribbon…
undated
A geometric diagram, drawn on paper, painted, or engraved into a sheet of metal, and usually smaller and less coloured than a mandala.
Modern (30)
undated
An octagonal or circular plaque with the eight trigrams set around a mirror at its centre. The mirror is flat, convex or concave, and which one it is decides what the…
1900 CE to now
A stamped metal medal clipped to a sun visor or glued to a dashboard, or a miniature statue standing on it, showing a giant wading a river with a child on his shoulder.
1950 CE to now
A struck metal disc the size of a large coin, bearing a unit's insignia or an organization's emblem, carried in a pocket.
1500 CE to now
A single twisted horn, a few centimetres long, tapering to a point and pierced at the wide end for a chain. Gold, silver, plastic, bone, terracotta or red coral.
undated
A cut or tumbled stone hung at the neck, usually in a wire cage or a silver bezel: a six-sided quartz point, a rose quartz lozenge, a lump of amethyst, a polished bead…
1764 CE to now
A hollow papier-mâché figure, round, weighted at the base so it rights itself when knocked over, usually red, with a bearded scowling face and two oversized white eyes…
1929 CE to now
A willow hoop with a net woven across it in sinew or plant cordage, tied off at a centre point, sometimes with feathers or beads added. Hung over a cradleboard or a bed.
1600 BCE to now
One or more blue-and-white eye beads on an elastic cord, a chain or a red string, sized for a wrist.
1979 CE to now
Four different objects doing one job. A brocade pouch a few centimetres long, the shrine's name woven into it, a paper or wooden prayer sealed inside and not to be…
1887 CE to now
Whatever was in the room the last time it went well. A pair of borrowed baseball shoes. A round rock picked up off a field. A uniform number. A cap turned inside out and…
2000 CE to now
A metal box worn shut. Himalayan Art Resources calls the type a portable shrine, generally made from metal worked in repoussé — hammered from the back so the design…
1800 CE to now
A painted disc on the side of a barn: usually a star inside a circular border, in bright colour on white.
1900 CE to now
Small worked or unworked pieces of animal and bird — bone, claw, tooth, skin, feather — sewn to clothing or carried, one amulet to one spirit. There is no single form.
1852 CE to now
A seated cat, one forepaw raised palm-down in a beckoning fold, usually holding an oval koban coin in the other. The classic figure is a calico Japanese Bobtail.
1832 CE to now
An oval stamped medal, worn at the neck on a chain. The front shows a woman standing on a globe, crushing a serpent's head, rays coming from rings on her hands, inside…
undated
A lime and seven green chillies threaded on a string and hung at a doorstep, over a shop counter or from the back of a vehicle. Nothing is worn and nothing is written.…
undated
A hard round seed of a Mucuna vine, dark and glossy with a broad black band across it, which is why it reads as an eye at arm's length.
1603 CE to now
A small brocade pouch, a few centimetres tall, drawn shut at the top with a cord and printed with the name of the shrine or temple that issued it.
1700 CE to now
Two things under one word. An ongon is a spirit in the shamanic belief of Mongolia — after death, shamans become shamanic souls, ongod — and it is also the made object…
undated
A small sewn packet, worn at the neck or carried, closed over whatever was put inside it.
1995 CE to now
A small figure, bead, tassel or brocade pouch on a thin cord, knotted with a lark's head through a hole in a phone or a case.
1866 CE to now
A small pressed image of the Buddha, a revered monk, a bodhisattva or a deva — a tablet a couple of centimetres across, in plaster, metal, wood or bone, often with ash…
undated
A sheet of yellow paper inscribed with sacred symbols, folded into a bagua shape or a rectangle and slipped into a red cloth sleeve.
1884 CE to now
A rabbit's hind foot, dried, carried in a pocket. Grander ones are capped in metal and hung from a chain; Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography that the boxer…
1894 CE – 1945 CE
A strip of cloth, usually white, about 15 centimetres wide and 90 to 120 centimetres or more long, carrying a thousand stitches or knots — commonly red, because white…
2000 CE to now
A diagram on paper, folded down to a small packet and bound in coloured thread.
1940 CE to now
A metal disc, brass, copper or bronze, ornamented on one face and polished on the other, worn on a shaman's body.
undated
A smooth polished gemstone, usually an oval with a thumb-sized dish worn into one face, about 3 centimetres across. It is held between index finger and thumb, and the…