Amulet Market

This guide to the Amulet Market beside Wat Mahathat in Bangkok explains why a disc of pressed clay smaller than a thumbnail can be worth more than a house, and follows the trade back to Somdej Toh, a nineteenth-century abbot who began pressing amulets from sacred herbs and temple ash around 1866. It traces how his reputation grew long after his death, and how taxi drivers, soldiers, and collectors all treat these objects as protection. Look closely at the stalls around you, where every dealer insists his piece is the real one.