[Ansteorra] Period Religious Jewelery -- Or Maybe Not!

[karen moon]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]


Darius brings up a good point -- Are amulets considered religious?  Many scholars make quite the point of separating magic from religion and place amulets, talismans and other "protective" (superstitious) paraphernalia in a different research bin from "religious" jewelry.  (So which bin does a St. Christopher medal go in?)

Some amulets may well have been religious.  Others .... might be a stretch to call them such.  Phallus amulets, for instance, were wildly popular with the Romans.  They were apparently hung on children and animals to ward off disease, they were incised into buildings as a charm to keep them from falling down or to keep burglars away, they even fashioned lamps in the shape of phalluses.  Most every garden had it's guardian Priapus, a stone or wooden statue of the self-same god, who sported quite the masculine member.  Their ubiquity in Roman areas might even suggest the Romans worshipped phalluses.  Happily, the Romans were literate and left many records, so we know they didn't worship phalluses (per se) and didn't even have a god of phalluses (Priapus notwithstanding...)   Other protective amulets were eyes -- painted on the sides of ships, melted into glass "eye" beads -- all meant to turn the "evil eye" and ward off bad luck.

This brief tangent is only meant to suggest that -- without further evidence or research -- a piece of jewelry might or might not be an amulet, and an amulet might or might not have religious significance.

Mari ferch Rathyen
annoying people with research since at least 1986....



----- Original Message -----
From: Darius and Monica
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 7:26 AM
To: ansteorra at ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Period Religious Jewelery

In like manner of Mistress Mari's answer of things that "might have been"
jewelry of religious nature; many amulets made from antler points and/or
antler crowns (the part where it flares out and attached to the head) have
been found in digs in Northern Europe, Scandinavia, and the Britannic Isles.
Many of those found have been either incised (scrimshaw is the post period
term for this art) or carved in very basic base relief with geometric
patterns, including allot of dots and circles. Beads made of antler were
also found decorated in this fashion.
Although it is not known for sure wether or not these amulets were truly of
religious nature it is a distinct possibility.

In Faith

Master Darius of the Bells, OL
"Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art, -
the instrument and the audience" - Sir Walter Raliegh



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