Investigating the unique magical objects used as amulets in Roman Britain, this book provides an exploration of their materiality and contextual use.

The archaeological evidence for magical and ritual practices in the ancient world includes the material remains of amulets and charms which intended to protect people from the Evil Eye, ill-health, misfortune, as well as more specific harms like sickness, the dangers of childbirth, or the pain of teething. There were a plethora of different shapes of amulets, and these objects were made out of specific materials to be worn or used in certain places. This book draws together the archaeological evidence for these magical practices within a single Roman province – Roman Britain – for the first time.

It demonstrates that a detailed and contextualized material approach to the study of ancient amulets is a powerful methodology to explore these often-overlooked objects. The scale of this approach is flexible, stretching from landscapes to individuals, as well as the important conceptual contexts of materials and iconography.

By gathering a dataset of over 2,000 amulets from Roman Britain and applying an internally consistent approach to the concept of 'magic', this volume argues that the spaces and places in which amulets were used were not just relevant, but integral, to an understanding of the function of those objects. It shows that amulets in Roman Britain were finely complicated objects that were often intensely personal and emotively important to the people who used them, and that we can begin to understand these connections by investigating their contextual use in the ancient world.