Amulets of Assimilation

The belief in similars, whereby animals whose qualities or characteristic behavior the wearer may have wished to acquire by assimilation, was prevalent in many ancient societies. In Egypt, too, only part of a creature was considered sufficient to represent the whole such as amulets in the shape of antelopes' heads or birds' claws.  Yet,  there is always the possibility that when amulets take the form of a powerful or dangerous creature, they are intended to give protection by acting apotropaically - that is, to ward off the very creature that they represent pictorially.