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Amulets, lockets and lucky stones: a short history of charms
Long before charms gathered on a chain, they were kept close for protection, for luck, and for love. Here is a little of their lore, drawn from the museums that keep them safe.
Small magicks of ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians wore amulets in great numbers, and most were likely cheap enough that almost anyone could own one. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art,"...ancient Egyptian amulets represented animals, deities, symbols, or objects in miniature." Faience was the usual choice, while Egyptians of higher rank could have theirs in gold, silver or electrum. The custom lasted through every age of Egyptian history, from before the first dynasties of kings to the centuries when Rome ruled.
Wedjat eye amulet, faience, Late Period (664–332 BCE). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A favorite was the wedjat eye. In the old myth, Seth wounded or stole the eye of Horus, and Thoth made it whole again. Its Egyptian name means "the one that is sound (again)," and whoever wore it was thought to take on that same power of renewal, and to be kept from harm.
A locket for every Roman child
In the Roman world, children wore a bulla around the neck, a pendant shaped much like a locket with a magical amulet sealed inside, as the Kelsey Museum at the University of Michigan explains. A boy from a poorer family might have worn one of bronze, and children of richer families wore gold. The bulla stood guard until somewhere between ages 12 and 14. Then the young teen gave it, along with their toys, to the household gods, and began to be treated as an adult.
Bronze bulla, Roman Period. Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, KM 0000.00.1454.
Stones with a hole worn through
In the English countryside, a stone with a natural hole through it was often hung on the door of a house or cowshed, to guard against witches and pixies or simply to bring luck, according to the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford. The museum holds one found nailed to a carter's cottage door "to keep away witches," and a black limestone pebble from the beach that a Northumberland fisherman hung behind his door as his "lucky stone."
Hag stone, collected by Edward Lovett. Horniman Museum and Gardens, London.
As for the name: folklore told of a hag, or witch, who would sit upon a sleeper's stomach in the night, and a holed stone hung from the bedpost was meant to keep her away. Our own Hag Stone Pendant carries that wee piece of lore on.
Queen Victoria's lockets
Queen Victoria kept her loved ones close in lockets, and the Royal Collection Trust still cares for several of her bracelets.
Soon after their engagement was made public, Prince Albert sent her a gold bracelet with a padlock hanging from it, a sign that the heart's secrets were safely locked away. In its day, a diamond meant eternity and an emerald meant hope. When their first child, Princess Victoria, was born in November 1840, Albert gave the Queen another bracelet, and a new locket joined it with the birth of each child after.
Queen Victoria's charm bracelet, nineteenth century. Gold, enamel, diamond and photograph. Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 65290.
A third bracelet, gold and hung with sixteen lockets, some oval and some heart-shaped, all enamelled black, was one she wore constantly. She died in 1901, forty years after Albert. By her own instruction, it was among a chosen set of jewels kept in the Albert Room at Windsor Castle, the room where he had died, rather than handed down through the family.
Charms carried to war
Bristol Museum notes that many soldiers took a lucky charm with them into battle. The collector E. Lovett gathered charms like these, carried by servicemen of Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Japan and the United States, and the museum bought his collection in 1920.
Hand and compass amulet, 1918, from E. Lovett's collection of soldiers' charms. Bristol Museums, N256.
A silver bracelet at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston was worn on the home front during the Second World War. Many of its charms were collected by a serviceman: field glasses, a jeep, a P-38 fighter plane, a helmet. A "lucky" horseshoe hangs among them, a tiny hinged album holds his photograph and that of his wife or sweetheart, and a 1944 Philippine coin, along with coins of Allied nations, suggests he served in the Pacific.
World War II charm bracelet, silver. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2011.145, gift of Mindy Markowitz Setzen
Charms at the studio
Ours are made in the same spirit: one stone at a time, added to as the years go on. Begin with the Hag Stone Pendant, or find your center stone among our loose natural gemstones.
Sources
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Ancient Egyptian Amulets": https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/egyptian-amulets
- Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, "Marcus Valerius Laos (Africanus)": https://lsa.umich.edu/kelsey/exhibitions/permanent-exhibition/people-of-rome/marcus-valerius-laos.html
- Pitt Rivers Museum, "A fisherman's lucky stone from Newbiggin-by-the-Sea": https://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-Lucky-Newbiggin-stone.html
- Pitt Rivers Museum, "A Dorset hag stone": https://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-Dorset-hag-stone.html
- Royal Collection Trust, Prince Albert's engagement bracelet: https://rct.uk/collection/stories/royal-weddings/bracelet
- Royal Collection Trust, bracelet presented on the birth of Princess Victoria (RCIN 65293): https://rct.uk/collection/exhibitions/victoria-albert-art-love/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace/bracelet
- Royal Collection Trust, Queen Victoria's charm bracelet (RCIN 65290): https://col.rct.uk/collection/65290/queen-victorias-charm-bracelet
- Bristol Museums, soldiers' lucky charms: https://museums.bristol.gov.uk/narratives.php?irn=11951
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, World War II charm bracelet (2011.145): https://collections.mfa.org/objects/550284
