AMULETS.
Amulets. By W. M. Flinders Petrie. (Constable and Co. 21s. net.)—The present volume is the first of a series dealing with various branches of Egyptian archaeology as illustrated by the collections at University College, London. Those collections owe so much to the unrivalled knowledge and taste of Professor Petrie that it is only right that he should have been selected to lead off with this interesting and exhaustive account of Egyptian amulets, of which some two hundred and seventy are here described. The Arabic Ita2niilet was originally "a freight, burden or thing carried"; but at a very distant date the word was restricted to a special object carried in the hope that it might confer some magical benefit upon the owner. In this sense the word passed into Latin as early as the time of Pliny. The modern "mascot "- the English phonetic equivalent of the French mascotte, ie., white witch—which gamblers and motorists, Cabinet Ministers and other "classes of illogical persons," carry with more than a half-belief in its virtues, is the direct lineal descendant of the Egyptian amulets classified by Professor Petrie.
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