An Amuletic Autumn at Pitt Rivers Museum

It's been a highly amuletic time at the Pitt Rivers recently. The charm, amulet and talisman collections are one of the most significant, evocative and numerous in the Museum's care and they have been the focus of three very different aspects of staff work in October....

1) First, came the invite from BBC Radio 4 to contribute to a series called The Digital Human, exploring the impact of technology on our lives. Aware of the expansive amulet collection at the Pitt Rivers and our various resources, the producers got in touch for an interview contribution to an episode on 'Protection' to reference some of our historical collections within a wider discussion about how smartphones act as modern-day protective amulets. You can listen to the episode here (specific PRM section from 12:00 - 18:00 minutes):

Marc Ferrez. Negra da Bahia, c. 1885 

© Salvador, BA / Acervo IMS 
Source: http://brasilianafotografica.bn.br

Indeed, there are plenty of parallels. We hold phones close to our body, we charge them every night with electricity, the way amulets get charged with personal proximity and powers of belief. We use phones for protection - against being late, against boredom, against laziness (how many steps have you done today?), against crime, against being disconnected from the world. 

Composite charms act like a collection of apps. The balangandan (or penca) from the Bahia region of Brazil is the perfect example. A fusion of cultural influences, this metal ornament came to South America via the West African slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries and was often worn by female slaves, dangling and jangling from the waist (hence the onomatopoetic name). As a colonial artefact this object is both problematic and challenging but its function is highly relatable; no two balangandans are the same and - just like the apps you choose to download on your phone - they feature various charms deemed relevant and personal to the wearer's life path - perhaps a boat to represent passage across the Atlantic; a fish in a nod to the Christian beliefs of the Portuguese colonial powers; a pomegranate representing fertility inherited from ancient Middle Eastern beliefs; a cashew nut symbolising the candomblé (Afro-Brazilian) god of thunder and lightning; or keys against the Evil Eye.

Balangandan charm, Brazil; 1954.7.15.1

2) October half term is one of the busiest and most hectic weeks of the year for us. Nearly 14,000 people through the doors, many on holiday and looking for some family fun. Being so close to Halloween, we teamed up with the Museum of Natural History next door to offer a 'Bats, Cats, Witches and Charms' extravaganza. They did the Bats and Cats, we did the Witches and Charms. It works :)

Over three days nearly 300 children plus their parents and carers took part in activities such as designing and making their own amulets, working out if witches are who we think they are, and using investigation skills to figure out two truths and a lie about charms in the handling collection. For example, if someone found this object in your garden and told you:

• It used to be a fish
• It was fired from a crossbow
• It protects against lightning

Which one is the lie?

Belemnite, Oxfordshire 2013.23.1 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Did you guess correctly? It's the second one. It might look like a projectile but this is in fact a belemnite - the naturally occurring fossil stone of a now-extinct cuttlefish. Due to their shape, people thought they were the heads of lightning bolts fallen to earth and, since lightning doesn't strike the same place twice, they were often put in the attic of the home to protect against lightning! Incidentally, they were also used for medicinal purposes - in southern England, they were ground to powder and used to cure diseases of the mouth.

What do these charms do? © Pitt Rivers Museum

Charms bring luck, amulets bring protection and talismans attract certain qualities or virtues. The children got wonderfully creative, making talismans to attract tickle monsters, tranquility, or allow the wearer to talk to cats, as well as amulets to protect against negative events such as being sad, dinosaur attacks and forest fires. What worked best about the activities is that the participants had to use their imaginations - often collectively as a family - to work out what it was they wanted (or needed) protection from. The activities employed effective 'visual thinking' strategies (e.g. cultivating curiosity, truth-seeking or creativity) to engage learners - for example, choosing to use handling objects from Europe helped ensure children understood and self-reflected that the use of charms happens in the UK and in nearby countries as well as more globally.

Handwritten labels accompanying the charms families created © Pitt Rivers Museum

3) Lastly, behind the scenes, the Move Project team are dealing with a numbers game. The Museum houses more than 20,000 objects which are documented as amulets. Just under 4,000 are either on display or stored at the Museum, and the remaining 16,000 are kept in reserve collections in storage. Since most amulets are personal items - kept in a pocket, strung around the neck or held in the hand - they are some of the smallest objects here. The Museum is in the process of moving its largest object store to a new building. You can keep up to date with the move via the team's entertaining Twitter feed.

The move involves transporting the 16,000 stored amulets to a new home. The store houses over 100,000 objects, from these tiny amulets to five-metre-long ploughs and almost everything in between. Unless the location of every object is carefully recorded, there is a huge risk that objects can easily become lost - and trying to find an amulet amongst 100,000 other objects is much harder than finding a plough...

To make sure this doesn't happen, members of the Move Team have been busily documenting the collection at the store. Each amulet is being physically numbered with a unique accession number which links to our object database. So far we are making headway with the Blackman collection of amulets, one of several large tranches of amulets transferred from the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in the 1980s. 

Measuring and labelling an amulet © Pitt Rivers Museum

Each object is photographed and extra information such as a physical description, materials, measurements and any potential hazards are added to the database record prior to packing the object ready for its move. The location of each amulet is also recorded, so we know which box it is in and which shelf that box is on, so if anyone wants to find it we don't have to start looking amongst the ploughs...


Helen Adams, Project Curator and Engagement Officer

with contributions from:

Andrew Hughes, Deputy Head of Conservation

Beth McDougall, Families and Communities Officer

For more about balangandan charms see:

• Crowley, Daniel J. & Doran H. Ross, ‘The Bahian Market in African-Influenced Art’, African Arts 15:1 (1981), p.p. 56–88 
• Fözy, Vilma, Balangandan - Afro-brazilian Amulet, Museum of Ethnography, Budapest (March 2016) http://bit.ly/2zTTK39

Cataloguing Hildburgh’s amulets

W. L. Hildburgh. Image: V&A

Walter Leo Hildburgh was a prolific collector of amulets from all over the world. When he died in 1955, he left his collection to the Wellcome Museum, and from there it was transferred in 1985 - along with thousands of other amulets including those collected by Lovett and de Mortillet - to the Pitt Rivers Museum.

The Wellcome Collection in London is currently engaged in a major revamp, and their new Reading Room will have fresh display spaces, for which they want to loan a number of the amulets now in Pitt Rivers. Some of the Wellcome staff visited Oxford recently and made a selection from the Hildburgh, Lovett and de Mortillet collections. While Lovett and de Mortillet have been the subjects of recent documentation projects, much of the Hildburgh collection remains uncatalogued. It was my task therefore, over the course of a three-month project, to ensure that the documentation for the selected objects was up-to-date, and that a digital image was provided for each.

Amulet for animals
© Pitt Rivers Museum, 1985.53.409

I started by completing the documentation of the Japanese section of the collection, which had already been started by two of my colleagues. From 1900, Hildburgh began a prolonged tour of Japan, India and China. He had a keen interest in anthropology and folklore - particularly magic and superstition. Many of the Japanese amulets are papers, printed with inscriptions and sometimes pictures, which you can buy at Shinto shrines and Japanese Buddhist temples. They can be for protection from various aliments, good luck, or for averting a particular calamity. Animals don’t have to go without protection, either: this amulet, from Hase-dera Temple in Kamakura, is for cows and horses.

Other amulets take the form of objects. They can be natural objects which are ascribed magic or amuletic properties, or they can be figures of deities or animals associated with good luck. One of these, the ‘maneki-neko’, the beckoning cat, is well-known outside Japan and can often be seen enticing customers to enter a Japanese restaurant. It does not bring luck exclusively to business owners, but to anyone who owns such a figurine. 

Maneki-neko and pig amulets
© Pitt Rivers Museum 1985.53.696 and 1985.50.154

Around 20 of Hildburgh’s Japanese amulets are going on display at the Wellcome Collection. To these are added some examples from Italy, Tunisia and Algeria. Amulets from these countries are often meant to be carried on the person for protection and double up as ornaments, e.g. pendants and brooches. This mother-of-pearl pig from Italy is a particularly pretty example. In his ‘Notes on Amulets’, Hildburgh writes that the pig stands for tranquility, an easy life and ‘all desired’.

Amulets are a particularly fascinating and pleasing subject. They are usually small, often beautiful, and come from all over the world, with interesting tales behind them. My project was only a very short one, and whilst I was able to complete the documentation of the Japanese section alone, much of Hildburgh’s collection awaits future projects to uncover the rest of its stories.

Elin Bornemann

More amulets on Flickr

Take a look at the new additions to the PRM 'Amulet' set on Flickr. These taster images will form the basis of the Small Blessings online gallery, which will be launched later this year and feature much more in-depth descriptions and research. 

Helen

Variolite pebble used as an amulet, France (PRM: 1985.52.705)

Amulet Cake Day

The Pitt Rivers Museum is a great place to work for lots of reasons. But one of them has to be the importance of cake to Museum life. Staff regularly make and bake goodies, or bring back traditional confections from their trips abroad, for us all to enjoy at break times. Every so often we run themed cake day 'contests' and this time around, we decided it would be apt to base it on amulets.

So, those wishing to take part had to make a cake or dessert that was inspired by the Museum's amulet and charm collections. The cakes were then laid out anonymously in the staff tea room, each with a piece of paper beside it. Staff were then asked to sample each cake and vote for their favourite - judged on both looks and taste - by placing a tally on the relevant piece of paper.

Pitt Rivers staff sampling and voting for cake

We had some brilliantly conceived and executed ideas, including a sponge Evil Eye rendered in blueberries, a rich chocolate Yin and Yang, a pink-frosted German lucky pig giant cookie, and a St. George lucky medallion recreated in ginger cake. Here are some of the other entries and the objects which inspired them....

A delicious creation from Alice and Rosanna, inspired by one of the
many reliquaries in the de Mortillet collection (PRM: 1985.52.109)

A citrus and white chocolate sponge (mine) based on an amulet from the Lovett collection
(also acquired from Wellcome): a tiny circle of paper on which is written the Lord's
Prayer (PRM 1985.51.781) [see here for more amulets from the Lovett collection].
Also a lime-flavoured tart from Marina, based on this lucky four leaf clover captured
in a green glass heart from Paris (PRM: 1985.52.1557)

Each cake received votes and it was a close-run thing as each one was yummy. Much to my surprise, my sponge cake - inspired by a piece of paper bearing the Lord's Prayer - won. I'll definitely use that recipe again, but next time I want to decorate it I'll buy a much smaller icing pen - I could only fit the first two lines on! 

Thanks to all the staff who took part - both the cooks and the tasters. I wonder what the next cake day theme will be?

Helen

My lucky cork

Last summer I was given this little object by my PhD supervisor. As he handed it to me he noticed a puzzled expression on my face. The object, a champagne cork and pound coin, was one that I had not encountered before.

In fact, the practice of placing a coin in a champagne cork has a long tradition. Corks that have been popped on special occasions, at weddings, birthday parties, or in this case my PhD viva (the examination of my doctoral thesis), have been made into keepsakes and good luck charms by many people. 

They were also once used by fishermen, who would cut a slit in the cork floats on their nets and insert a coin to pay for their catch. This one now sits on a shelf in my office, where I hope it will work a little lucky magic. 

I hope you will share your own lucky objects with us by entering the Amulets Around The World Today photograph competition, which runs from 10 May to 31 July 2012.

Charlotte

It's a Kind of Magic

This week, a guest blog from Simone Dogherty, an Education Officer at the Museum.

A family enjoying the Make-and-Take activity after exploring the handling objects

On the first Saturday of every month, the Education team delivers free, family-friendly, drop-in activities. This month, we ran one in conjunction with the Small Blessings project, called ‘It’s a Kind of Magic’. We had a range of activities on offer during the afternoon to get families interacting with the charms and amulets on display in the Museum. There was a trail, called ‘Charm Challenge’, which guided families around specific objects in the amulet displays and encouraged children to design their own. There was also a handling table, where families could hold real Museum objects and discuss them with trained volunteers. Finally – the biggest attraction – a ‘Make-and-Take’ activity, where families could decorate a charm bracelet or armband, and hang from it paper charms based on real ones in the collection. 

Making paper charms for armbands to take home

This Make-and-Take was a nicely straightforward activity to create. Charms and amulets naturally lend themselves to being worn, or carried around with you, so making a bracelet or armband seemed an obvious choice. It’s always nice to have a strong connection between the objects and an activity, to ensure that the families also get a valuable educational experience out of it, often without realizing. Also, the most successful Make-and-Takes are always those where the children (and adults!) get to wear what they make.

This boy had designed many of his own charms,
including one to help things grow in his garden

A pretty charm bracelet, each one's magical powers described on the back

There’s always preparation for an event like this. You have to create and present the activity and trail in a way that enables families to learn a lot without much effort, as well as make them fun and enjoyable so they have a positive experience in the Museum. It’s a difficult balance to strike, so a lot of time is devoted to this. Then there’s all the photocopying, laminating, and setting up the activity space. On the day, a huge amount of work is done by a wonderful team of volunteers who assist families, run the handling tables and promote the other activities going on, so I get the opportunity to step back and check that it all runs smoothly!

We had lots of positive feedback and, even better, lots of families were keen to head downstairs to see the amulet displays and learn a bit more about them. More than 100 children participated in the activities, which hopefully reflects the large number of people inspired by the collections, and who discovered new things about charms and amulets from around the world!

Simone

Green Russian

This leather purse is from Kazan in Russia. It contains two nuts and according to our records, once also held two old Russian coins. It was carried to ensure that the bearer always had money. 

Before treatment (PRM: 1985.52.968)

Detail of corrosion (PRM: 1985.52.968)

The purse was passed to me for conservation treatment due to there being green-blue evidence of copper corrosion around the eyelets.

We always assess an artefact throughly before carrying out any treatment, as a sweep of our brush could mean life or death for a little piece of history.

On first inspection it looked a little like there had been copper wire stitching around the eyelets and that this had corroded. If this was the case, I would need to record it carefully before continuing treatment, so I took a look at it under the microscope. I took the photo by attaching a Canon EOS 60D camera to a microscope set at x40 magnification. The image was then sharpened using Helicon Focus Software.

After treatment (PRM: 1985.52.968)

This revealed that it was just products of copper corrosion growing away from the eyelets, giving the illusion of stitching. As a result I could simply brush away the corrosion and vacuum up the debris with our Museum vacuum. 

Jenny

Small Blessings on display

Over the last few weeks the team has been busy preparing 23 of the ‘Small Blessings’ amulets for display in the Museum. After selecting a handful of amulets from the thousands in the collection, I set about the task of writing display labels for them. The labels tell visitors a little bit about where each amulet is from and what it was used for – a first glimpse of the stories that will be available on the final project website, which we will be launching this summer.

Each of the objects was catalogued by Alice and Rosanna, photographed by Malcolm, and checked for display by Jenny. Alice and Rosanna ensured that each object had been numbered and that its location had been updated on the database, and Jenny whisked one of the snails away to the freezer as it was showing signs of pest damage that might have endangered the other objects.

Ady, one of the Museum technicians, made a mock-up of the display so that we could decide where to place all of the objects and labels and see how the case would look. All this advanced planning meant that when everything was finally ready we could install the display with minimal disruption to the Museum.

Although the ‘Small Blessings’ display is only a small, temporary installation, preparing it involved a whole team of people. We hope you will be able to come to the Museum and take a look at these intriguing objects – you can find them in the Upper Gallery.

On display are: a policeman’s amulet, an ex-voto, a wolf’s tooth, a faith, hope and charity charm, two reliquaries, two Loreto bells, three horned hands, three Eiffel Tower mascots, four snails in linen bags, and five death’s head amulets.

Charlotte

Easter Amulets

According to de Mortillet’s original catalogue, these textile heart amulets contain pieces of Easter bread and were worn around the neck. They are listed as coming from St. Michael’s Convent in Kiev, Ukraine, and were collected sometime by 1931 (the year of de Mortillet's death). 

PRM 1985.52.206-.208

Bread-making is an important aspect of Ukrainian Easter traditions; paska and babka are two round shaped sweet breads served at Easter. Babka is either iced or left plain, whereas paska is elaborately decorated with symbolic motifs made of dough, such as crosses, flowers and solar signs, or other religious symbols.

Paska baked by Lubow Wolynetz © The Ukrainian Museum (New York)
http://www.brama.com/art/easter.html

Paska is traditionally made by women, and whilst it is being baked various ‘magical gestures’ and ‘incantations’ are used to ensure that the bread is a success. For example, as the dough is being prepared the person making it must maintain ‘pure thoughts’, and while it is in the oven no one is allowed to sit down or make loud noises out of fear that the bread might collapse.

After the bread is baked it is wrapped in rushnyk, a ritual cloth, or placed in a basket with a newly embroidered cloth. Other Easter foods, such as eggs, salt, butter, cheese, and horseradish, are also added to the basket. Then on Easter Sunday the basket is taken to church to be blessed by the priest, after which it is taken home to be eaten. 

Easter basket © The Ukrainian Museum (New York)
http://www.brama.com/art/easter.html

However, pieces of the consecrated Easter bread also become amulets, for example, to protect fields against hail, or to ward off ‘evil influences’. And, colourfully decorated Easter eggs (pysanky and krashanky), another important part of Ukrainian tradition, were supposed to cure a person of illness when hung on a piece of string around the neck. So, perhaps these textile heart amulets from St. Michael’s Convent were worn to protect the wearer from evil or sickness, or just as a reminder of the meaning of Easter.

1911.40.5-.13 (Romania) and 1965.3.209 (Galicia) are on display in the Lower Gallery
and were decorated using a 'resist-dye' (batik) process.

It’s amazing how three small amulets can lead you into an exploration of a different Easter tradition. Hopefully you will all be inspired to try making your own Easter bread or having a go at painting some eggs this Easter weekend.

The Small Blessings team wish you a very Happy Easter!

Rosanna 

Notes from Conservation

Some amulets bagged up ready for
freezing due to pest damage

Now that the Small Blessings project is well under way, amulets requiring conservation treatment have started to make their way in to the conservation lab.

The large majority of the objects being sent my way for treatment are corroding metals and textile / organic objects, which have been nibbled by pests.

Objects with pest damage are gently cleaned using a museum vacuum, which has a very low suction. They are then placed in our freezer for several days at -30 degrees in order to kill off any remaining bugs, larvae or eggs.

One of the slightly more complex objects needing attention is a small satchel containing religious pictures that was carried by a policeman in Germany (PRM 1985.52.70 - see below). It is a composite object, with silk, copper alloy, paper, and other textile components, each of which is deteriorating or damaged in its own way.

Front of policeman's satchel with detail of corroded metal (PRM: 1985.52.70)

One problem area is on the front, where there is a heavily corroded copper alloy border placed right on top of the red silk. Any treatment carried out on the metal has to be done with great care not to damage or stain the silk further.

The next issue is pest damage, which is particularly noticeable on the back of the satchel. Here the pests have eaten away a lot of the textile around the stitching.

Back of satchel showing pest damage

As with all objects arriving in the lab, the satchel has been photographed and given a thorough assessment. The next stage will be to come up with a plan of action for its treatment.

Jenny

De-installation of 'Charmed Life' exhibition at Wellcome Trust

A guest blog by PRM Curatorial Assistant, Maddie Ding:

© Wellcome Images

At the end of February I went to London with Andrew, a PRM Conservator, to de-install an exhibition of amulets at the Wellcome Trust. Curated by the artist Felicity Powell, Charmed Life was inspired by the collection of Edward Lovett’s amulets held by the PRM. I was involved with the original installation last autumn; now our job was to remove, check and pack the 381 objects lent by our Museum.

Maddie and Felicity Powell arranging amulets for display during
the installation of Charmed Life in 2011. © Wellcome Images

We worked from Monday to Wednesday. The first case lid was removed by the Wellcome Technicians team shortly after our arrival and objects were carried to the work table where they were condition checked by either Andrew or myself and countersigned by the Wellcome Trust conservator before being packed. The objects were removed from display in reverse order to how they'd been installed (i.e. the last one in was the first one out). Objects were placed in plastic bags and padded with foam. The bagged objects were packed in the appropriate plastic box. The wooden crate held nine plastic boxes each with a contents list.

Andrew and Luana (Wellcome conservator) checking objects under lamplight

Before the objects left the Pitt Rivers Museum for loan, they were assessed by another of our Conservation team, Jenny (who is now working on the Small Blessings project). She described and photographed each object so our role was to compare the object with the original condition report to check that no changes had occurred. Happily there no problems as the condition of all the objects matched the initial assessment. Each time we had a break, the objects we had de-installed were stored in the packing crate and the lid secured. The remaining objects were secured in the display case and the gallery locked.

© Wellcome Images

By Wednesday all the objects were packed safely into their crate. The time it takes to install or de-install an exhibition depends on the number, complexity, size or significance of the objects and working practices of the host museum. This de-installation was calculated to take about three days but if we needed more time the return transport could be delayed. The courier company provided a lorry with drivers to transport the objects back to Oxford, and Andrew and I personally accompanied the crate back to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Most of the objects will be re-packed for storage but a few will return to display.

Maddie

P.S. Even though the exhibition has now finished, you can see a selection of the Pitt Rivers Museum's Lovett amulets that were on display here.

Magic Snakes and Potatoes

A couple of weeks ago, the project team walked the short distance up to No. 61 Banbury Road, home of the University’s Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA). We went to attend a student lecture entitled ‘The Self-Management of Misfortune by the Use of Amulets and Charms'. The speaker was Eric Edwards, whose years as a former gallery attendant and library assistant at the Museum have endowed him with a passion for, and extensive knowledge of, its collections. 

59 and 61 Banbury Road
© Roger Templeman  

Eric talked about the ancient origins of amulets as far back as Paleolithic Germany more than 30,000 years ago. He pointed out that although concepts of folklore, religion, superstition and medicine were all useful when talking about amulets, the most important thing to understand is that they are believed to possess magical powers. That belief may be personal or cultural (or both), and is what transforms them from ordinary objects into amulets. They retain this power for as long as people believe in them and, in many cases, are only considered efficacious when held, touched or kept close to the body.

PRM 1985.51.840: Ammonite pendant in silver mount

Eric cited the social anthropologist Sir James George Frazer who, a century ago, attributed the magical powers of amulets to one of two principles: the laws of similarity and contagion. Amulets working under the law of similarity use ‘like-for-like’ to imitate cause and effect; for example, in places such as Cambridgeshire and Whitby ammonite fossils were believed to be dead, curled up snakes and were therefore worn as amulets to protect against adder bites. As such, they were often known as ‘adder beads’ and ‘snake stones’.

An amulet working under the law of contagion has once been in contact with another object or person, thereby establishing a magical link between the two. Obvious examples of this type are the many Christian reliquaries we are finding in the de Mortillet collection, their owners able to channel reassurance and protection from the tiny fragments of bone, hair or clothing derived from the saint or holy figure to whom they directed their prayers.

PRM 1908.11.1:
'Lucky stone', Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, Northumberland

Eric went on to describe other idiosyncratic examples of British and Irish amulets. There were twigs of wormwood, fixed over doors to keep away 'bad fairies' in County Cork and the Newbiggin stone, one of the few items in the Museum from Northumberland. It is a piece of limestone that has been bored through naturally by a mollusc and was hung on the back of a door in the cottage of William Twizel, a fisherman, as a ‘lucky stone’. 

Finally, there was a potato charm belonging to Harry Hopkins, an innkeeper in Leighton Buzzard in the late 19th century. Mr Hopkins had carried the potato in his coat pocket along with three others for nine years as a cure for rheumatism and had remained free from the condition for all that time. Unfortunately, you won't be able to use those hash browns in your freezer to the same effect; for the charm to work, it was essential for the potato to have been stolen…

Helen

What's inside?

Over the next seven months the project team will be accessioning and documenting the objects inside these boxes. What will they find? 

The catalogue for this collection tells us that Adrien de Mortillet collected amulets from all around the world. There are amulets from Algeria, Bolivia and China, and from Egypt, India and Japan. Many of the amulets are from cities in Russia – Kiev and Moscow, Italy – Naples, Rome and Verona, and France – Paris, Toulouse and Tours. 

The catalogue also tells us that many of the objects are religious amulets. There are reliquaries (containers for relics connected with saints or other religious figures), rosaries (prayer beads), and ex-votos (votive offerings to saints or divinities). There are also many hamsas (the hand of Fatima) and fish (a traditional symbol of Christianity). 

Apart from these religious amulets there are also many folkloric amulets in the collection, including acorns, clovers and horseshoes. 

The variety of these objects is also reflected in the materials from which they are made. There are amulets made from stone, coral and pearl, from bronze, silver and gold, and from teeth, bone and skin. 

Charlotte