The following is an anonymous article published circa 1882. Often associated with the occult, amulets have an amazing history. There are many living artists today that design and make amulets, closely following the practice, traditions and origins of the ancient past of peoples.
"Who wore the first amulet? It would be impossible to say; but the adoption of a talisman to ward off evil is of very ancient origin.
Phylacteries, the Greek word for amulets, were worn by the Jews, to which allusion is made in the Scriptures. These phylacteries were a narrow strip of parchment, on which were written passages from the Old Testament. This strip was placed in a small leathern box, and bound to the left elbow by a narrow strap. There was a smaller phylactery for the forehead, the box for which was about an inch square.
The word amulet is of Arabic origin, and implies a thing suspended. Amulets were of various kinds. The moonstone found in the desert of Arabia was worn as a talisman against enchantment by the women, who suspended it around the neck. It was a white transparent stone, the time of searching for it being midnight.
In India a variety of gems and stones are used as amulets. The most common is the Salagrama, a stone as large as a billiard ball, and which is perforated with black. This is supposed to be found only in the Gandaki, a river in Nepal. The person who possesses one of these stones is esteemed highly fortunate; he preserves it in a clean cloth, from whence it is sometimes taken to be bathed and perfumed. He believes that the water in which it is washed, if drank, has the power to preserve from sin. Holding it in his hand the dying Hindu expires in peace, trusting in a stone rather than in the living God.
The modern Egyptian is a believer in the Evil Eye, to avert which he hangs around the neck charms supposed to possess a magic power. These are usually worn by children, and consist of little tin or leather cases, which enclose words either from the Scriptures or Koran, if the children are of Muslim parents.
Even the Romans were not without their charms. They hung little cases around the neck which contained a charm, generals not disdaining the same. Augustus thought it would bring him good luck to wear a piece of the sea-calf [also known as a seal], and therefore, never went without this talisman.
In Greece the priests sell the sick charms consisting of pieces of paper, on which is written the name of the disease from which the person is suffering, and these are nailed to the door of the chamber. Pliny(1) tells us that any plant, gathered by a river before sunrise by a person, if unseen, tied on the left arm of an ague [successive stages of chills and fever that is a symptom of malaria] patient, without his knowing what it is, will cure the disease.
Queen Elizabeth, during her last illness, wore around her neck a charm made of gold which had been bequeathed her by an old woman in Wales, who declared that so long as the queen wore it she would never be ill. The amulet, as was generally the case, proved of no avail; and Elizabeth, not withstanding her faith in the charm, not only sickened but died. During the plague in London, people wore amulets to keep off the dread destroyer. Amulets of arsenic were worn near the heart. Quills of quicksilver [Mercury] were hung around the neck, and also the powder of toads [which is no doubt hard to come by in the 21st Century].
It was not at all unusual for soldiers and others who were exposed to danger to wear talismans by way of protection. A story, which gained credence, is told of a soldier in the time of the Prince of Orange [a title of nobility]. He was a Spanish prisoner, and, on being condemned to be shot, it was found that he was invulnerable. The soldiers stripped him to see what kind of armor he wore, when it was discovered that he was not protected in that way, but an amulet, on which was the figure of a lamb, was found on his person. This was taken away from him, and the hosts took effect. During the Prussian war of 1870, after the battles, the field was frequently found full of amulets which had fallen from the dying grasp of the soldiers. It was ascertained that the more ignorant the Russian soldier, the more he clung to the belief in the protective power of the amulet.
In 1838, a beautiful locket, forming a small padlock, was found in digging a grave in a churchyard at Devizes, in Wilthsire, England. This was a charm, and, being valuable was buried with the owner.
Louis Napoleon, who believed himself, even amidst exile and poverty, destined to that throne which the prestige of his name and his cunning coup d' etat enabled him to reach, was not without his superstitions. In his will he says, "With regard to my son, let keep as a talisman the seal I used to wear attached to my watch." This talisman had no power to turn aside the fatal balls of the Zulus; and the young Napoleon met a sadder fate than his father's worst fears could have imagined for him.
What were known as anodyne necklaces [considered by many to be a quack remedy], which were beads made out of the root of the white bryony [a poisonous plant—also known as Wild Nepit—used in the fourteenth century as an antidote to leprosy] were hung around the necks of infants to ward off convulsions. The Chinese wore pearls as a charm against fire; and in some countries the agate formed an amulet that was supposed to protect from disease."
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston holds a collection of amulets dating back to the early Egyptians. The Boston museum reported in 1930 that the amulets representing its collection included an "extensive group [of amulets] which has come to the Museum from its excavations at Giza, and which is on exhibition in the Seventh Egyptian Gallery." In the 1930 Edition of the "Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts", Boston, the fine art of amulets is described(2):
"The materials out of which amulets were made are many. Perhaps the commonest of all is faience(3), a paste made of ground stone mixed with some adhesive binder. This paste was shaped usually in a mould, sometimes by hand, and then covered with a glaze of blue or green color, the whole being baked to give it a permanent vitreous surface.... The great range of quality workmanship, all the way from the finely modeled hand-finished specimen to the crudely moulded approximation of the same which it would be difficult to recognize were it not for the intermediate grade which connects the two extremes. The finest faience amulet in the Museum's collection, a figure of the Memphite god Nefertum standing on the back of a recumbent lion.
Amulets were also made of different kinds of stone, among which, to name only a few, may be mentioned lapis lazuli, carnelian, red or green jasper, haematite, steatite, beryl, serpentine, and limestone. Some of these stones are extremely hard and we cannot but admire the technical skill which could fashion these delicate objects out of such obdurate materials.
Another favorite substance for the manufacture of amulets was gold. Always a popular material with Egyptians not only for its intrinsic value and brilliance but also because of its permanence, gold lent itself readily to the chap and rapid fabrication of amulets of many kinds…. The required figures and design were cut in intaglio in a stone or pottery mould into which a sheet of gold was beaten until it took on the impress of the figures. It was then only necessary to cut the different units from the sheet and the waste could be melted down and used in making a second batch.
As illustrations of Egyptian magico-religious belief no less than as examples of their technical skill and artistic ability in little things, these objects cannot fail to be of interest."
1. Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – August 25, 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, which became a model for all such works written subsequently. Source: Wikipedia.
2. See Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Volume XXVIII, Boston, December, 1930, Number 170.
3. Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff body, associated with Faenza in northern Italy.[1] The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major advance in the history of pottery. The invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C (1,830 °F) was required to achieve this result (see pottery), the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. Source: Wikipedia.
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