Amulet in the context of Slave revolts in ancient Rome

Shinto (神道, Shintō; Japanese pronunciation: [ɕiꜜn.toː]), also called Shintoism, is a religion originating in Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, it is often regarded by its practitioners as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners Shintoists, although adherents rarely use that term themselves. With no unifying doctrine or central authority in control of Shinto, there is much diversity of belief and practice evident among practitioners.

A polytheistic and animistic religion, Shinto revolves around supernatural entities called the kami (神). The kami are believed to inhabit all things, including forces of nature, prominent landscape locations, and even notable historical figures. The kami are worshipped at kamidana household shrines, family shrines, and jinja public shrines. The latter are staffed by priests, known as kannushi, who oversee offerings of food and drink to the specific kami enshrined at that location. This is done to cultivate harmony between humans and kami and to solicit the latter's blessing. Other common rituals include the kagura dances, rites of passage, and kami festivals. Public shrines facilitate forms of divination and supply religious objects, such as amulets, to the religion's adherents. Shinto places a major conceptual focus on ensuring purity, largely by cleaning practices such as ritual washing and bathing, especially before worship. Little emphasis is placed on specific moral codes or particular afterlife beliefs, although the dead are deemed capable of becoming kami. With the kami of the dead, there is the common worship of ancestral kami, whose presence is only in your clan, and Arahitogami, who can have their purification rituals performed by anyone whose life has been impacted by them. The religion has no single creator or specific doctrine, and instead exists in a diverse range of local and regional forms.

A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, fate, magic, amulets, astrology, fortune telling, spirits, and certain paranormal entities, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific unrelated prior events.

The word superstition is also used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions or to all religions by the antireligious.

Slavery played an important role in the society and economy of ancient Rome. Unskilled or low-skill slaves labored in the fields, mines, and mills with few opportunities for advancement and little chance of freedom. Skilled and educated slaves—including artisans, chefs, domestic staff and personal attendants, entertainers, business managers, accountants and bankers, educators at all levels, secretaries and librarians, civil servants, and physicians—occupied a more privileged tier of servitude and could hope to obtain freedom through one of several well-defined paths with protections under the law. The possibility of manumission and subsequent citizenship was a distinguishing feature of Rome's system of slavery, resulting in a significant and influential number of freedpersons in Roman society.

At all levels of employment, free working people, former slaves, and the enslaved mostly did the same kinds of jobs. Elite Romans whose wealth came from property ownership saw little difference between slavery and a dependence on earning wages from labor. Slaves were themselves considered property under Roman law and had no rights of legal personhood. Unlike Roman citizens, by law they could be subjected to corporal punishment, sexual exploitation, torture, and summary execution. The most brutal forms of punishment were reserved for slaves. The adequacy of their diet, shelter, clothing, and healthcare was dependent on their perceived utility to owners whose impulses might be cruel or situationally humane.

Christian Palestinian Aramaic was a Western Aramaic dialect used by the Melkite Christian community, predominantly of Jewish descent, in Palestine, Transjordan and Sinai between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. It is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts (mostly palimpsests, less papyri in the first period) and amulets. All the medieval Western Aramaic dialects are defined by religious community. CPA is closely related to its counterparts, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) and Samaritan Aramaic (SA). CPA shows a specific vocabulary that is often not paralleled in the adjacent Western Aramaic dialects.

The metals of antiquity are the seven metals which humans had identified and found use for in prehistoric times in Africa, Europe and throughout Asia: gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron, and mercury.

Zinc, arsenic, and antimony were also known during antiquity, but they were not recognised as distinct metals until later. A special case is platinum; it was known to native South Americans around the time Europe was going through classical antiquity, but was unknown to Europeans until the 18th century. Thus, at most eleven elemental metals and metalloids were known by the end of antiquity; this contrasts greatly with the situation today, with over 90 elemental metals known. Bismuth only began to be recognised as distinct around 1500 by the European and Incan civilisations. The first elemental metal with a clearly identifiable discoverer is cobalt, discovered in 1735 by Georg Brandt, by which time the Scientific Revolution was in full swing. (Even then, cobalt might have been prepared before the 13th century by alchemists roasting and reducing its ore, but, in any case, its distinct nature was not recognised.)

A grimoire (/ɡrɪmˈwɑːr/) (also known as a book of spells, magic book, or a spellbook) is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets; how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination; and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons. In many cases, the books themselves are believed to be imbued with magical powers. The only contents found in a grimoire are information on spells, rituals, the preparation of magical tools, and lists of ingredients and their magical correspondences. In this manner, while all books on magic could be thought of as grimoires, not all magical books should be thought of as grimoires.

While the term grimoire is originally European—and many Europeans throughout history, particularly ceremonial magicians and cunning folk, have used grimoires—the historian Owen Davies has noted that similar books can be found all around the world, ranging from Jamaica to Sumatra. He also noted that in this sense, the world's first grimoires were created in Europe and the ancient Near East.

A thunderstone is a prehistoric hand axe, stone tool, or fossil which was later used as an amulet to protect a person or a building. The name derives from the ancient belief that the object was found at a place where lightning had struck. They were also called ceraunia (a Latin word, derived from the Greek word κεραυνός, both of which mean 'thunderbolt').

Scarabs are amulets and impression seals shaped according to the eponymous beetles, which were widely popular throughout ancient Egypt. They survive in large numbers today, and through their inscriptions and typology, these artifacts prove to be an important source of information for archaeologists and historians of ancient Egypt, representing a significant body of its art.

Though primarily worn as amulets and sometimes rings, scarabs were also inscribed for use as personal or administrative seals or were incorporated into other kinds of jewelry. Some scarabs were created for political or diplomatic purposes to commemorate or advertise royal achievements. Additionally, scarabs held religious significance and played a role in Egyptian funerary practices.