Good-luck charm

An amulet is an object that is typically worn on one's person, and is alleged to have the magical power to protect its holder– either to protect them in general or to protect them from some specific thing. Amulets are different from talismans because a talisman may have alleged magical powers other than protection. Amulets are sometimes confused with pendants– small aesthetic objects that hang from necklaces. Any given pendant may indeed be an amulet, but so may any other object which purports to protect its holder from danger.

Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plant parts, animal parts, and even written words in the form of a magical spell or incantation to repel evil or bad luck. Magic scrolls are found to be used in various cultures, and artifacts of scrolls with magical inscriptions have been found in the middle east, Europe, and the far east.

The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word amulētum. The earliest extant use of that term is in Pliny's Natural History, in which it means "an object that protects a person from trouble".

Amulets were particularly prevalent in ancient Roman society, being the inheritor of the ancient Greek tradition, and inextricably linked to Roman religion and magic (see Magic in the Greco-Roman World). Amulets are usually outside of the normal sphere of religious experience, though associations between certain gemstones and gods has been suggested. For example, Jupiter is represented on milky chalcedony, Sol on heliotrope, Mars on red jasper, Ceres on green jasper, and Bacchus on amethyst. Amulets are worn to imbue the wearer with the associated powers of the gods rather than for any reasons of piety. The intrinsic power of the amulet is also evident from others bearing inscriptions, such as vterfexix (utere fexix) or "good luck to the user." Amulet boxes could also be used, such as the example from part of the Thetford treasure, Norfolk, UK, where a gold box intended for suspension around the neck was found to contain sulphur for its apotropaic (evil-repelling) qualities.

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