Resources > Amulets

Patricia Kret visited the Centre for the Study of Ancient Material Religion at The Open University on 24th February 2025 to give a paper entitled ‘Reuse in the creation and use of Greco-Roman amulets’. After the seminar, Jessica Hughes and Patricia Kret were joined by Dr Emma-Jayne Graham and Dr Barbara Roberts to record an audio discussion about amulets in the ancient Roman world. The discussion also features the voice of Dr Robert Wallis, talking about his recent research on some amuletic objects from an Anglo-Saxon burial site in Alfriston, England.

You can listen to this recording via Soundcloud. A transcript of the conversation is also available.

Programme structure and timecodes:

0.00 Introduction; 0.40 Patricia Kret on ancient Roman amulets - types and development; 3.56 Barbara Roberts on amulets from late antique Italy and Sicily, and the relationship between amuletic objects and bodies and spaces; 9.01 Emma-Jayne Graham on terracotta votive models of babies wearing amulets; 13.11 Robert Wallis on the pierced eagle talon and brooches from medieval Alfriston; 18.47 Studio responses to Robert Wallis; 23.36 Patricia Kret on an inscribed ‘migraine amulet’; 24.31 Barbara Roberts on an inscribed terracotta tablet from Sicily; 25.53 Emma-Jayne Graham on crabs and thunderstones.

Further reading and resources:

Blog post written by OU student Colin Gough about the seminar.

On Greco-Roman amulets in general, see:

Faraone, C. A. (2018) The Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times. Philadelphia.

To find out more about the material discussed by Patricia Kret, see:

Kotansky, R.D. (1994) Greek Magical Amulets. The Inscribed Gold, Silver, Copper, and Bronze Lamellae. Opladen. [For the ‘migraine amulet, see number 13].

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 28.220 and 30.53-54 [for the hare and eagle amulet].

To find out more about the material discussed by Barbara Roberts, see:

Giannobile, S. (2002) ‘Medaglioni magico-devozionali della Sicilia tardoantica’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, 45, pp. 170–201.

Lane, L.L. (ed.) (1999) A Roman villa and a late Roman infant cemetery: excavation at Poggio Gramignano, Lugnano in Teverina. Rome: Bibliotheca Archaeologica.

Nuzzo, D. (2000) ‘Amulet and grave in late antiquity: some examples from Roman cemeteries’, in J. Pearce, M. Millett, and M. Struck (eds) Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World. Oxford: Oxbow Books, pp. 249–255.

Pugliese Carratelli, G. (1953) ‘Epigrafi magiche cristiane della Sicilia orientale’, Rendiconti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, storiche, e filologiche. Serie 8., 8, pp. 181–189.

To find out more about the material discussed by Emma-Jayne Graham, see:

Graham, E-J. (2020) Reassembling Religion in Roman Italy. Routledge.

Graham, E-J. (2013) ‘The making of infants in Hellenistic and early Roman Italy: a votive perspective’, World Archaeology, 45(2) pp. 215–231.

This earlier audio discussion about votives, fertility and early infancy.

To find out more about the material and approaches discussed by Robert Wallis, see:

Wallis, R.J. (forthcoming) ‘Raptorness: the ‘bodies’ of humans becoming-with birds of prey in the art and archaeology of early medieval England’, Open Arts Journal.

Wallis, R.J. (ed.) (2023) The Art and Archaeology of Human Engagements with Birds of Prey: From Prehistory to the Present, London, Bloomsbury.

Wallis, R.J. (2025 in press) ‘The hawk in hand: human-raptor sociality and falconry in early medieval England’, in G. Owen-Crocker and M. Clegg-Hyer (eds) Animalia: Animal and Human Interaction in Daily Living in the Early Medieval English World (The Material Culture of Daily Living, Vol. 5), Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, in press.

Pauketat, T. (2013) ‘Agency, bundling and positioning’, in An Archaeology of the Cosmos: Rethinking Agency and Religion in Ancient America, London, Routledge, pp.27–42.

Zedeño, M.N. (2009) ‘Animating by association: index objects and relational taxonomies’, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol.19, no.3, pp. 407–17.

Zedeño, M.N. (2013) ‘Methodological and analytical challenges in relational archaeologies: a view from the hunting ground’, in C. Watts (ed.), Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things, London, Routledge, pp. 117–34.