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Identifying reliquaries and devotional objects

Containers for the sacred — from enkolpia to house shrines.

Reliquaries held relics — bone, cloth, earth from holy places — and range from great church shrines to personal pendants. The portable finds are typically cross-shaped pendants that open (two hinged halves, often with cast figures of Christ or saints), small boxes, and later glazed lockets with paper labels naming contents.

Byzantine-tradition enkolpia (bronze relic crosses with loops and hinges at top and bottom) are a well-known type. Post-medieval Catholic devotional objects — house shrine fragments, holy water stoups, ex-votos (small silver body parts given in thanks) — each have distinct forms.

Never force open a closed reliquary; contents and their wrappings are the point. Record hinges, loops, and iconography, photograph both faces, and treat contents (if visible) as archaeology in miniature. Provenance and dignity both matter with sacred objects — catalogue accordingly.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on religious objects

Seals and seal matrices — Reading a reversed device.

Identifying pilgrim badges and ampullae — Lead-tin devotional souvenirs.

Identifying scarabs and amulets — Egyptian protective forms.

Identifying cuneiform tablets — Wedge-marks in clay.

Identifying ushabti figures — The mummiform servants of Egyptian burials — and their million imitations.

Identifying icons and devotional art — Painted panels, brass travelling icons, and the grammar of sacred images.

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