page_title: Touch piece
section_title: Coins carrying out a specific practical action
hierarchical_section_title: Touch piece / Coins carrying out a specific practical action
caption_attribution_description: English: Sator square Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas (word square, palindrome) in Oppède (France). The letters S and N are reversed like for an ambigram.
context_page_description: A touch piece is a coin or medal believed to cure disease, bring good luck, influence people's behaviour, carry out a specific practical action, etc.
  What most touch pieces have in common is that they have to be touched or in close physical contact for the 'power' concerned to be obtained and/or transferred. Once this is achieved, the power is assumed to be permanently present in the coin, which effectively becomes an amulet.
context_section_description: In Germany, since Medieval times, it was believed that a silver coin with a Sator square engraved on it will put out a fire if thrown into the conflagration. Coins were placed on the eyes of a corpse to prevent them from opening and also in Greek mythology as payment for the ferryman who would carry the dead person across the River Styx into Hades. In the 17th century coins bearing an engraving of St. George were carried by soldiers as a protection against injury following a lucky escape when a bullet hit such a coin and the soldier remained uninjured (Coins of the World). Some of the gold coins of Edward III carry the cryptic legend: IHS MEDIVM ILLORVM IBAT ("But Jesus passing through the midst of them, went his way" – St'Luke IV. 30). According to Sir John Mandeville, this was a spell against the power of thieves.
caption: The Sator square
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