The story of Cupid and Psyche found several expressions among the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their literary peers,[191] and Stanhope, while mourning the death of his only child, produced a number of works dealing with the afterlife. Grabka, "Christian Viaticum", p. 13, with extensive references; Cedric G. Boulter, "Graves in Lenormant Street, Athens,", T.J. Dunbabin, "Archaeology in Greece, 1939–45,", Roy Kotansky, "Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed Greek Amulets," in, D.R. "These factors make it difficult to determine the rite’s significance. The placement suggests a functional equivalence with the Goldblattkreuze and the Orphic gold tablets; its purpose — to assure the deceased’s successful passage to the afterlife — is analogous to that of Charon’s obol and the Totenpässe of mystery initiates, and in this case it acts also as a seal to block the dead from returning to the world of the living. The myth of Charon is about one of the most enigmatic characters in Greek mythology: the ferryman of the underworld. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. [188], Although Charon has been a popular subject of art,[190] particularly in the 19th century, the act of payment is less often depicted. A function comparable to that of Charon’s obol is suggested by examples such as a man’s burial at Monkton in Kent and a group of several male graves on Gotland, Sweden, for which the bracteate was deposited in a pouch beside the body. Franz Cumont regarded the numerous examples found in Roman tombs as "evidence of no more than a traditional rite which men performed without attaching a definite meaning to it. [46] During 1998 excavations of Pichvnari, on the coast of present-day Georgia, a single coin was found in seven burials, and a pair of coins in two. [15], Ferryman of Hades in Greek-Roman mythology, This article is about the mythological figure. [8] From the 6th to the 4th centuries BC in the Black Sea region, low-value coins depicting arrowheads or dolphins were in use mainly for the purpose of "local exchange and to serve as ‘Charon’s obol.‘"[9] The payment is sometimes specified with a term for "boat fare" (in Greek naulon, ναῦλον, Latin naulum); "fee for ferrying" (porthmeion, πορθμήϊον or πορθμεῖον); or "waterway toll" (Latin portorium). [7], Other Latin authors also describe Charon, among them Seneca in his tragedy Hercules Furens, where Charon is described in verses 762–777 as an old man clad in foul garb, with haggard cheeks and an unkempt beard, a fierce ferryman who guides his craft with a long pole. [29], The incongruity of paying what is, in effect, admission to Hell encouraged a comic or satiric treatment, and Charon as a ferryman who must be persuaded, threatened, or bribed to do his job appears to be a literary construct that is not reflected in early classical art. [186] A century after Heinrici, James Downey examined the funerary practices of Christian Corinthians in historical context and argued that they intended vicarious baptism to protect the deceased’s soul against interference on the journey to the afterlife. Coins are found also at the deceased’s feet,[156] although the purpose of this positioning is uncertain. But you shouldn’t go emptyhanded through the shadows past this point, but rather carry cakes of honeyed barley in both hands,[147] and transport two coins in your mouth. [100] A Sumerian model for Charon has been proposed,[101] and the figure has possible antecedents among the Egyptians; scholars are divided as to whether these influenced the tradition of Charon, but the 1st-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus thought so and mentions the fee. His mission was to transport the souls of those who had recently died to Hades, where they would dwell forever. Charon's services do not come gratis with death. [130], In the view of Richard Seaford, the introduction of coinage to Greece and the theorizing about value it provoked was concomitant with and even contributed to the creation of Greek metaphysics. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased. 38–42; G.J.C. sp., a lambeosaurine dinosaur from the Late Maastrichtian of northeastern China". 300 BC, that contained cremated remains, two obols, and a terracotta figure of a mourning siren. "The varied placement of coins of different values … demonstrates at least partial if not complete loss of understanding of the original religious function of Charon’s obol," remarks Bonnie Effros, a specialist in Merovingian burial customs. [162], The hunt is also associated with the administering of a herbal viaticum in the medieval chansons de geste, in which traditional heroic culture and Christian values interpenetrate. Snoek. [12], The hadrosaurid Charonosaurus is named in Charon's honor because it was found along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East.[13]. His fee for carrying the dead across the rivers to the underworld was a single coin, usually an obolus or danake. [11], Charon, the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, is named after him. [69] In 1878, Pope Pius IX was entombed with a coin. [129], Erwin Rohde argued, on the basis of later folk customs, that the obol was originally a payment to the dead person himself, as a way of compensating him for the loss of property that passed to the living, or as a token substitute for the more ancient practice of consigning his property to the grave with him. The Phrygian king's famous "golden touch" was a divine gift from Dionysus, but its acceptance separated him from the human world of nourishment and reproduction: both his food and his daughter were transformed by contact with him into immutable, unreciprocal gold. Her religious paraphernalia included gold tablets inscribed with instructions for the afterlife and a terracotta figure of a Bacchic worshipper. The use of coins as grave goods shows a variety of practice that casts doubt on the accuracy of the term "Charon’s obol" as an interpretational category. [36], Some of the oldest coins from Mediterranean tombs have been found on Cyprus. Charon is the son of Nyx. Snoek, J. Patout Burns, "Death and Burial in Christian Africa,", So too the metaphor of the soul’s food in the account of Ambrose’s death, as emphasized by Pope Benedict, and St. Thomas Aquinas’s reference to the "fruit of God. These paper-thin, fragile gold crosses are sometimes referred to by scholars with the German term Goldblattkreuze. [64], The custom of Charon’s obol not only continued into the Christian era,[65] but was adopted by Christians, as a single coin was sometimes placed in the mouth for Christian burials. This character is a ragged and careless old man with a matted white beard. In the same way, violence carries off the life of young men; old men, the fullness of time. [88] The transition is signalled by Scandinavian bracteates found in Kent that are stamped with cross motifs resembling the Lombardic crosses. Throughout the Lombardic realm and north into Germanic territory, the crosses gradually replaced bracteates during the 7th century. ; G.J.C. Godefroit, Pascal; Shuqin Zan; Liyong Jin (2000). [177] By the time Augustine wrote his Confessions, "African bishops had forbidden the celebration of the eucharist in the presence of the corpse. [195], Poets of the modern era have continued to make use of Charon's obol as a living allusion. [61], According to one interpretation, the purse-hoard in the Sutton Hoo ship burial (Suffolk, East Anglia), which contained a variety of Merovingian gold coins, unites the traditional Germanic voyage to the afterlife with "an unusually splendid form of Charon's obol." [45], The Black Sea region has also produced examples of Charon’s obol. In the newer part of the cemetery, which remained in use through the 6th century, the deposition patterns for coinage were similar, but the coins themselves were not contemporaneous with the burials, and some were pierced for wearing. 1–43; A. In ad… At one time, the cemetery was regarded as exhibiting two distinct phases: an earlier Gallo-Roman period when the dead were buried with vessels, notably of glass, and Charon's obol; and later, when they were given funerary dress and goods according to Frankish custom. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee,", M. Vickers and A. Kakhidze, "The British-Georgian Excavation at, Samuel R. Wolff, "Mortuary Practices in the Persian Period of the, Stephen McKenna, "Paganism and Pagan Survivals in Spain During the Fourth Century," The Library of Iberian Resources, Statistics collected from multiple sources by Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. In Roman poetry, he looked even worse - Virgil portrays him as a … For an analysis of these dialogues, ss Terpening, pp. In "Don Juan aux enfers" ("Don Juan in Hell"), the French Symboliste poet Charles Baudelaire marks the eponymous hero's entry to the underworld with his payment of the obol to Charon. Charon was the ferryman in charge of transporting the dead to the underworld. 5th-1st century BC. Only rarely does the placement of a pair of coins suggest they might have covered the eyes. The myth of Charon says that the boatman of the underworld was the son of Nyx and Erebus. On the Iberian Peninsula, evidence interpreted as Charon's obol has been found at Tarragona. In Hellenistic-era tombs at one cemetery in Athens, coins, usually bronze, were found most often in the dead person’s mouth, though sometimes in the hand, loose in the grave, or in a vessel. This coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased prior to burial. The phrase "Charon’s obol" as used by archaeologists sometimes can be understood as referring to a particular religious rite, but often serves as a kind of shorthand for coinage as grave goods presumed to further the deceased's passage into the afterlife. [141] A golden key (chrusea klês) was laid on the tongue of initiates[142] as a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret. In some versions of the myth, Midas's hard-won insight into the meaning of life and the limitations of earthly wealth is accompanied by conversion to the cult of Dionysus. For example, Grabka, "Christian Viaticum," pp. John Chrysostom mentions and disparages the use of coins depicting Alexander the Great as amulets attached by the living to the head or feet, and offers the Christian cross as a more powerful alternative for both salvation and healing: And what is one to say about them who use charms and amulets, and encircle their heads and feet with golden coins of Alexander of Macedon. Prudentius says that auri lammina ("sheets of gold") were placed on the bodies of initiates as part of funeral rites. [30] Humor, as in Aristophanes's comic catabasis The Frogs, "makes the journey to Hades less frightening by articulating it explicitly and trivializing it." the Eucharist) is most necessary for the journey you have to make. The Flemish painter, Joachim Patinir, depicted Charon in his Crossing the River Styx. ", "Gold coins and ingots from the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo,", A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, boar in the traditional religions of Europe, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Charon%27s_obol&oldid=998463379, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. On later vases, Charon is given a more "kindly and refined" demeanor.[6]. But even when he’s dying, the poor man’s required to make his own way (viaticum … quaerere), and if it happens that he doesn’t have a penny (aes) at hand, nobody will give him permission to draw his last breath. For one, Nyx was the goddess of the night, endowed with such overwhelming beauty that even Zeus feared her. 107–116. In Roman literary sources the coin is usually bronze or copper. [169], The insertion of herbs into the mouth of the dead, with a promise of resurrection, occurs also in the Irish tale "The Kern in the Narrow Stripes," the earliest written version of which dates to the 1800s but is thought to preserve an oral tradition of early Irish myth. In the 13th and 14th centuries, Charon's obol appears in graves in Sweden, Scania, and Norway. [54] In Belgic Gaul, varying deposits of coins are found with the dead for the 1st through 3rd centuries, but are most frequent in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. [167], Kay’s conjecture that a pre-Christian tradition accounts for the use of leaves as the viaticum is supported by evidence from Hellenistic magico-religious practice, the continuance of which is documented in Gaul and among Germanic peoples. [53], Cemeteries in the Western Roman Empire vary widely: in a 1st-century BC community in Cisalpine Gaul, coins were included in more than 40 percent of graves, but none was placed in the mouth of the deceased; the figure is only 10 percent for cremations at Empúries in Spain and York in Britain. [116], The Republican poet Ennius locates the "treasuries of Death" across the Acheron. Dart, "Death Ships in South West Africa and South-East Asia,", Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece? With instructions that recall those received by Psyche for her heroic descent, or the inscribed Totenpass for initiates, the Christian protagonist of a 14th-century French pilgrimage narrative is advised: This bread (pain, i.e. One fragmentary text seems to refer to a single obol to be paid by each initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries to the priestess of Demeter, the symbolic value of which is perhaps to be interpreted in light of Charon’s obol as the initiate’s gaining access to knowledge required for successful passage to the afterlife. [50], Discoveries of a single coin near the skull in tombs of the Levant suggest a similar practice among Phoenicians in the Persian period. The phrase continues to be used, however, to suggest the ritual or religious significance of coinage in a funerary context. [108] Hermes is a god of boundaries, travel, and liminality, and thus conveys souls across the border that separates the living from the dead, acting as a psychopomp, but he was also a god of exchange, commerce, and profit. Thirty Gallo-Roman burials near the Pont de Pasly, Soissons, each contained a coin for Charon. Also, his face is grim, dirty, and gloomy and he has a very nasty attitude. [74], These examples of the "Charon's piece" resemble in material and size the tiny inscribed tablet or funerary amulet called a lamella (Latin for a metal-foil sheet) or a Totenpass, a "passport for the dead" with instructions on navigating the afterlife, conventionally regarded as a form of Orphic or Dionysiac devotional. Kenney, text, translation and commentary, Susan Savage, "Remotum a Notitia Vulgari,". The word naulon (ναῦλον) is defined by the Christian-era lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria as the coin put into the mouth of the dead; one of the meanings of danakē (δανάκη) is given as "the obol for the dead". For example, J.H.G. The painting was created for a show in which artists were to bring together a mythological figure and a pop-culture icon, chosen randomly. The coin for Charon is conventionally referred to in Greek literature as an obolos (Greek ὀβολός), one of the basic denominations of ancient Greek coinage, worth one-sixth of a drachma. It has abolished death, has extinguished sin, has made Hades useless, has undone the power of the devil, and is it not worth trusting for the health of the body?[157]. [41] In excavations of 91 tombs at a cemetery in Amphipolis during the mid- to late 1990s, a majority of the dead were found to have a coin in the mouth. The ancient historian Diodorus Siculus thought that the ferryman and his name had been imported from Egypt. When the boatman tells Heracles to halt, the Greek hero uses his strength to gain passage, overpowering Charon with the boatman's own pole. Grabka, "Christian Viaticum," p. 27; Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. For the Greeks, Pluto (Ploutōn, Πλούτων), the ruler of the dead and the consort of Persephone, became conflated with Plutus (Ploutos, Πλοῦτος), wealth personified; Plato points out the meaningful ambiguity of this etymological play in his dialogue Cratylus. For description of an example from Athens, see H.B. [173] Because of the viaticum’s presumed pre-Christian origin, an anti-Catholic historian of religion at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries propagandized the practice, stating that "it was from the heathens [that] the papists borrowed it. Charon’s Role in Greek Mythology. In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Charon or Kharon (/ˈkɛərɒn, -ən/; Greek Χάρων) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the river Styx that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. … Pass by in silence, without uttering a word. Although denomination varies, as does the number in any given burial, small coins predominate. Curiously, the coin was not the danake of Persian origin, as it was sometimes among the Greeks, but usually a Greek drachma. In the 2nd-century "Cupid and Psyche" narrative by Apuleius, Psyche, whose name is a Greek word for "soul," is sent on an underworld quest to retrieve the box containing Proserpina’s secret beauty, in order to restore the love of Cupid. [192] In Stanhope’s vision, the ferryman is a calm and patriarchal figure more in keeping with the Charon of the archaic Greek lekythoi than the fearsome antagonist often found in Christian-era art and literature. Charon was a resident of the Greek Underworld, living in the realm that was to become Hades' after the Titanomachy; and in the time of Hades, Charon was named as the Ferryman of the Dead, although presumably it was a role that Charon had undertaken prior to … Swedish folklore documents the custom from the 18th into the 20th century. The burial yielded 37 gold tremisses dating from the late 6th and early 7th century, three unstruck coin blanks, and two small gold ingots. So, he reigned over the deep mists that surrounded the ends of the Earth. Several glass vessels were arranged at her feet, and her discoverers interpreted the bronze coin close to her head as an example of Charon’s obol. Upon her lips was placed a gold danake stamped with the Gorgon’s head. Variety of placement and number, including but not limited to a single coin in the mouth, is characteristic of all periods and places. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee: A Study in Ethnology, Archaeology, and Tradition,". Charon, the ancient ferryman of Greek myth, is one of those figures that pops up even where other deities get ignored or forgotten. Sometimes people simply call him ‘the ferryman’ and he loses his name, but we all know who we’re referring to. To this nasty old man you’ll give one of the two coins you carry — call it boat fare (naulum) — but in such a way that he himself should take it from your mouth with his own hand. taken) by Haros". Although archaeology shows that the myth reflects an actual custom, the placement of coins with the dead was neither pervasive nor confined to a single coin in the deceased's mouth. The iconography of gods and various divine beings appeared regularly on coins issued by Greek cities and later by Rome. In Judea, a pair of silver denarii were found in the eye sockets of a skull; the burial dated to the 2nd century A.D. occurs within a Jewish community, but the religious affiliation of the deceased is unclear. "[109], The numerous chthonic deities among the Romans were also frequently associated with wealth. [82] This practice may or may not be distinct from the funerary use of gold leaf inscribed with figures and placed on the eyes, mouths, and chests of warriors in Macedonian burials during the late Archaic period (580–460 BC); in September 2008, archaeologists working near Pella in northern Greece publicized the discovery of twenty warrior graves in which the deceased wore bronze helmets and were supplied with iron swords and knives along with these gold-leaf coverings. [170] The kern of the title is an otherworldly trickster figure who performs a series of miracles; after inducing twenty armed men to kill each other, he produces herbs from his bag and instructs his host's gatekeeper to place them within the jaws of each dead man to bring him back to life. Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. [75] Several of these prayer sheets have been found in positions that indicate placement in or on the deceased's mouth. [56], In one Merovingian cemetery of Frénouville, Normandy, which was in use for four centuries after Christ, coins are found in a minority of the graves. Although single coins from inhumations appear most often inside or in the vicinity of the skull, they are also found in the hand or a pouch, a more logical place to carry a payment. [111] Dis Pater is sometimes regarded as a chthonic Saturn, ruler of the Golden Age, whose consort Ops was a goddess of abundance. Augustine. The Suda defines danakē as a coin traditionally buried with the dead for paying the ferryman to cross the river Acheron, and explicates the definition of porthmēïon (πορθμήϊον) as a "[174] Contemporary scholars are more likely to explain the borrowing in light of the deep-seated conservatism of burial practices or as a form of religious syncretism motivated by a psychological need for continuity. Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. [154] During the 1980s, the issue became embroiled with the controversies regarding the Shroud of Turin when it was argued that the eye area revealed the outlines of coins; since the placement of coins on the eyes for burial is not securely attested in antiquity, apart from the one example from Judea cited above, this interpretation of evidence obtained through digital image processing cannot be claimed as firm support for the shroud's authenticity.[155]. At Broadstairs in Kent, a young man had been buried with a Merovingian gold tremissis (ca. Haros or Charos (Greek: Χάρος) is the modern Greek equivalent of Charon. [15] … Fruits, if they are green, can scarcely be wrenched off the trees; if they are ripe and softened, they fall. The burials dated from the 4th to the late 2nd century BC. "[26] In an elegy of consolation spoken in the person of the dead woman, the Augustan poet Propertius expresses the finality of death by her payment of the bronze coin to the infernal toll collector (portitor). [181] In a general audience October 24, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI quoted Paulinus's account of the death of St. Ambrose, who received and swallowed the corpus Domini and immediately "gave up his spirit, taking the good Viaticum with him. Before embarking on her descent, Psyche receives instructions for navigating the underworld: The airway of Dis is there, and through the yawning gates the pathless route is revealed. It has been conjectured that the coins were to pay the oarsmen who would row the ship into the next world, while the ingots were meant for the steersmen. People who are unable to pay the fee are doomed to wander the shores of the river for 100 years. [80] The early Christian poet Prudentius seems[81] to be referring either to these inscribed gold-leaf tablets or to the larger gold-foil coverings in one of his condemnations of the mystery religions. The Suda defines danakē as a coin traditionally buried with the dead for paying the ferryman to cross the river Acheron,[10] and explicates the definition of porthmēïon (πορθμήϊον) as a ferryman’s fee with a quotation from the poet Callimachus, who notes the custom of carrying the porthmēïon in the "parched mouths of the dead."[11]. Once you cross the threshold, you are committed to the unswerving course that takes you to the very Regia of Orcus. Charon's obol is an allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth[1] of a dead person before burial. One of the accusations of heresy against the Phrygian Christian movement known as the Montanists was that they sealed the mouths of their dead with plates of gold like initiates into the mysteries;[79] factual or not, the charge indicates an anxiety that Christian practice be distinguished from that of other religions, and again suggests that Charon’s obol and the "Orphic" gold tablets could fulfill a similar purpose. Coins started to be placed in tombs almost as soon as they came into circulation on the island in the 6th century, and some predate both the first issue of the obol and any literary reference to Charon’s fee. Walters, David M. Robinson, "The Residential Districts and the Cemeteries at Olynthos,". These begin to appear in the late Iron Age and continue into the Viking Age. In Rohde's view, the obol was later attached to the myth of the ferryman as an ex post facto explanation. [14] The Greek soldiers referred to it as "Outpost Haros". Not on the eyes; all literary sources specify the mouth. She wore a wreath made from gold oak leaves, and her clothing had been sewn with gold-leaf ovals decorated with female faces. [139] Oval mouth coverings, perforated for fastening, are found in burials throughout the Near East from the 1st century BC through the 1st century AD, providing evidence of an analogous practice for sealing the mouths of the dead in regions not under Roman Imperial control. [34] The jawbones of skulls found in certain burials in Roman Britain are stained greenish from contact with a copper coin; Roman coins are found later in Anglo-Saxon graves, but often pierced for wearing as a necklace or amulet. [71], So-called "ghost coins" also appear with the dead. In Western Europe, a similar usage of coins in burials occurs in regions inhabited by Celts of the Gallo-Roman, Hispano-Roman and Romano-British cultures, and among the Germanic peoples of late antiquity and the early Christian era, with sporadic examples into the early 20th century. [131] Plato criticizes common currency as "polluting", but also says that the guardians of his ideal republic should have divine gold and silver money from the gods always present in their souls. And yet "the image of the ferry," Helen King notes, "hints that death is not final, but can be reversed, because the ferryman could carry his passengers either way. The investigating archaeologists did not regard the practice as typical of the region, but speculate that the local geography lent itself to adapting the Greek myth, as bodies of the dead in actuality had to be ferried across a river from the town to the cemetery. It is unclear whether the dead were Colchians or Greeks. [137] The stopping of the mouth by Charon's obol has been used to illuminate burial practices intended, for instance, to prevent vampires or other revenants from returning. [78], Textual evidence also exists for covering portions of the deceased’s body with gold foil.
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