Old Habits, New Faith: A Late Antique Amulet from Egypt (BM 1938,1010.1)
Old Habits, New Faith: A Late Antique Amulet from Egypt (BM 1938,1010.1)

Summary/Abstract: This paper analyzes a faithful copy of a 6th/7th-century amulet which exemplifies the parallel use of multiple distinct varieties of religious imagery within a single art work. The amulet combines a detailed Christological cycle, engraved on the one side, with a representation of a winged creature, standing on two crocodiles, on the other, derived from images of Horus, an ancient Egyptian god. Such an intriguing combination of religious imagery taken from distinct cultural contexts testifies to the survival and integration of earlier beliefs in early Byzantine Egypt and to the various strategies employed by worshippers in the hope of reaching out to several divine forc-es at once.

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