Amulet Atlashttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/2026-09-18T12:50:51ZNaNAgnus Deihttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/agnus-dei/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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 reigning pope.Brown Scapularhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/brown-scapular/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTwo 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 rectangle hangs down the back.Challenge coinhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/challenge-coin/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA struck metal disc the size of a large coin, bearing a unit's insignia or an organization's emblem, carried in a pocket.Crystal pendanthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/crystal-pendant/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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 of agate or turquoise.Exam charmhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/exam-charm/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZFour 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 opened.Game-day charmhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/game-day-charm/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZWhatever 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 worn backwards.Ladankahttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/ladanka/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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 now, often with an icon on the lid.Miraculous Medalhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/miraculous-medal/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZAn 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 an oval of words that reads "O Mary, conceived…Phone charmhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/phone-charm/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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.St Christopher medalhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/st-christopher-medal/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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 gold all get struck.Tamahttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/amulet/tama-votive/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA 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 runs through it.Illa practicehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/andean-illa-practice/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA practice of making the small thing stand for the large one. Its oldest form is the illa: a carved stone llama or alpaca, palm-sized, with a cylindrical hole sunk into the back between the shoulders — a container, fed…Fulu — Taoist talismanic crafthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/chinese-fu-craft/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZWriting that is not meant to be read. Fulu are Taoist talismanic characters — strokes that resemble Chinese characters, often an existing word elongated, with non-character symbols worked in, sometimes two characters…European folk apotropaic crafthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/european-folk-apotropaic/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZProtective objects made and kept by European households outside the church's list: iron over a door, a bottle in a hearth, a shoe in a wall, rowan bound with red thread, a cross of rushes in the rafters, a bead against…Islamic talismanic crafthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/islamic-talismanic/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZWriting, worn. The tradition makes protective objects out of text — Qur'anic verses, the ninety-nine names of God, names of angels and prophets, pious phrases, invocations — set on paper, parchment, metal, cloth or a…Engimonohttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/japanese-engimono/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZObjects bought at a shrine, a temple or a fair to bring a named good thing: a brocade pouch for traffic safety, a paper or wooden tablet for the household altar, a red papier-mâché doll with blank eyes, a ceramic cat…Practical Kabbalahhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/jewish-practical-kabbalah/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThe branch of Jewish mysticism that makes things: amulets and incantations built from divine and angelic names, written on parchment or cut into silver, and carried, hung or worn.Bujeok crafthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/korean-bujeok-craft/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTalismans drawn by a mudang, the ritual specialists at the centre of Musok, Korean vernacular religion.Latin American folk Catholic charm practicehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/latin-american-folk-catholic/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZCatholic forms in lay hands, worked past the point the clergy sanctions.Taonga Māorihttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/maori-taonga/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTreasures with whakapapa. A hei-tiki, a hei matau, an adze reworked into a pendant, a cloak, a carving: Te Papa's own description of taonga Māori covers ancestral carvings, personal ornaments, garments and weaponry…Thai wichahttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/tradition/thai-wicha/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThe taught craft behind Thailand's protective objects: the designs, the scripts, the incantations and the rules that go with them.The bellhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/sign/bell/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA small bell, hung or carried, that sounds when the air or the body it is attached to moves.The keyhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/sign/key/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA key, drawn or hung. Nobody in this record carries one to open anything.The lionhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/sign/lion/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA lion's head on a human body, a lioness's paws on a hippopotamus, or a lion reared up on its hind legs.The spiralhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/sign/spiral/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA line that winds in on itself. It is cut into stone, painted on pottery, blazoned on a shield, and — once, and importantly — used as the direction in which to write, so that the words themselves coil inward.The treehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/sign/tree/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA tree standing where it stands. This is the one sign in the atlas that is often not drawn at all: the mark is the tree, and what a reader would notice is not a carving but the things tied to it, planted beside it, or…Clothhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/cloth/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZWoven fibre doing three different jobs: a bag that holds a charm, a garment that is one, and a strip that records how many people worked on it.Copper and bronzehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/copper/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZCopper and its alloys: bronze with tin, brass with zinc. It casts, it takes an inscription, it corrodes to a green skin and then stops, and it was cheap enough to make a charm by the thousand in places where silver was…Glasshttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/glass/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZSilica melted, coloured through and worked hot. Glass does two things no other material in this atlas does at once: it holds a colour all the way through a bead the size of a fingernail, and it comes out of the ground…Hairhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/hair/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZHair cut from a named person and put inside something else. It is almost never the charm on its own.Herb and roothttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/herb/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZLeaves, roots, bark, bulbs and dried fruit, used either as the charm itself or as the filling of one.Inkhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/ink/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZPigment suspended in a liquid: charcoal and water in West Africa, sometimes with saffron added, and driven under the skin elsewhere.Leadhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/lead/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA soft grey metal, cheap, heavy, and soft enough to scratch with a stylus and then fold in the hand. It is also poisonous, which is the whole of its modern story.Seed and nuthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/seed/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThe hard inner stone of a fruit, dried, drilled and strung, or carried whole.Skinhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/skin/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThe only amulet material a person cannot put down. Pigment is driven into the dermis — the layer of skin under the surface — where macrophages engulf it and hold it in a band just below the boundary between the two…Fired clayhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/terracotta/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZClay pressed into a mould or worked by hand, then fired until it stops being clay.Woodhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/material/wood/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZCut, carved, split or planed. Wood is probably the commonest amulet material in the world and one of the rarest in a museum tray older than a few centuries, because it burns, rots, and in a great many traditions is…Blessing at a shrinehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/practice/blessing-at-a-shrine/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTaking an object to where the power is, rather than bringing the power to the object. The move has two directions and this record keeps them apart.Buying one in a markethttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/practice/buying-in-a-market/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZMoney changes hands and an object becomes yours. It is the ordinary route to a charm almost everywhere — a tray in a lane, a counter inside a temple gate, an aisle at the back of a municipal market, a stall in a…Counting beadshttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/practice/counting-beads/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA string of a fixed number of beads or knots, run through the fingers so that the hand keeps count while the mouth says something.Room 1: Enlightenment, the British Museumhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/place/british-museum-room-1/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZOne long room off the Great Court, lined with tall wall presses and galleried in dark wood.The Egyptian galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Arthttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/place/met-egyptian-galleries/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA chain of rooms along the museum's north side, running from the predynastic material through to Roman Egypt and ending at the Temple of Dendur in its glass hall.The amulet and charm cases, Pitt Rivers Museumhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/place/pitt-rivers-charms/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZEight glass-topped cases on the Court, the ground floor of the museum, with deep drawers under them.Mana Whenua, Te Papahttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/place/te-papa-taonga/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTe Papa's permanent Māori exhibition, on Level 4 of the Wellington waterfront building.The Lovett charms at Wellcome Collectionhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/place/wellcome-lovett/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZAn address rather than a room. Walk into 183 Euston Road today and there is no case of Edward Lovett's London charms to look at: the permanent show of Henry Wellcome's own collecting, Medicine Man, closed for good on 27…Amulet or talisman?https://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/story/amulet-or-talisman/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZTwo words, one tray of objects, and no agreement about which word goes on which object. Some writers cut the pair by direction — an amulet turns harm away, a talisman pulls fortune in.Dating a charmhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/story/dating-a-charm/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThe timeline on this site is drawn from one field. Every record may carry a `dating` block with a start year, an end year, a flag saying whether people still carry the thing, and a word saying how the date is known.Free to usehttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/story/free-to-use/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZThis is the licence explained to the person who wants to take something. The records and the pages built from them are under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. The code that builds them is MIT.Most of them are for childrenhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/story/most-of-them-are-for-children/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZSomewhere in every general account of amulets sits a sentence saying that the largest single class of them, anywhere in the world, is protection for infants: the cradle charm, the jet fist pinned inside a Puerto Rican…The charm goes digitalhttps://nanobotco.github.io/amulet-atlas/story/the-charm-goes-digital/2026-09-17T00:00:00ZA charm you cannot hold raises every question this atlas asks of a bead, and a few the bead never had to answer.