Amulet jewelry has been spellbinding us for millennia. Today, antique and vintage amulet pendants, gold amulet jewelry and other amulet accessories are favorites of jewelry lovers all over the world.
The oldest form of jewelry is said to be the amulet. Our earliest ancestors ascribed meaning — and magic — to feathers, bones, stones and even tree bark. They wore or carried these “amulets” for protection or to enhance their strength, courage or sexual attraction. Over time, these were replaced with symbolic objects: small replicas of animals, plants and, later, gods.
For the Egyptians, there was no more potent protection than the image of the scarab, otherwise known as the dung beetle. They believed it was a male-only species that reproduced itself by depositing its seed in dung, which its babies then fed upon.
By turning waste to life, the scarab symbolized the god Khepri of the rising sun — “he who has come into being from nothing” — and hence both transformation and resurrection. So wondrous were the powers of the scarab that it became a popular amulet throughout the ancient Mediterranean (for example, the scarab could be seen in signet rings from Greece crafted circa 500 B.C.).
And the dung beetle continues to fascinate designers as a symbol even into our present day, with none other than John Galliano creating an Egyptian Revival necklace for Christian Dior’s Spring/Summer 2004 collection (the audacious British designer worked with Dior from 1997 until 2011). In the center of his piece is an orange Lucite scarab.
Like primeval man, the jeweler Temple St. Clair believes that any adornment can be a power object, so long that it has special meaning to us. She should know. St. Clair began her storied design career — she’s the first contemporary woman jeweler to have her work included in the jewelry collection of the Louvre — by conceiving modern-day amulets.
Find antique and vintage amulet jewelry on 1stDibs.