The word “phylactery” has several meanings according to wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/phylactery
Here are some other names for the same concept: soul jar (used by tv tropes), horcrux (coined by J.K. Rowling from random syllables, though that hasn’t stopped fans from inventing their own etymology), animarium (coined by myself from Latin anima and -arium), secret heart (used by Palladium), spirit jar, soul gem, etc.
The basic concept of a soul jar is simple: it contains someone’s soul. Why it does is, of course, highly variable. It might be a funerary object as with the mid-Eastern Han Dynasty. It might be a prison. It might be a means of enslaving the soul’s owner as with Afro-Caribbean zombies. It might be a way to cheat death as with Koschei the Deathless, Voldemort, and the D&D lich.
And that’s basically everything I can think of right now.
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