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Charon's obol is an allusive term for the coin placed in or on the mouth [1] of a dead person before burial. Greek and Latin literary sources specify the coin as an obol , and explain it as a payment or bribe for Charon , the ferryman who conveyed souls across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.
The deceased were buried with an obol placed in the mouth of the corpse, so that—once a deceased's shade reached Hades—they would be able to pay Charon for passage across the river Acheron or Styx. Legend had it that those without enough wealth or whose friends refused to follow proper burial rites were forced to wander the banks of the ...
Coins for the dead is a form of respect for the dead or bereavement. The practice began in classical antiquity when people believed the dead needed coins to pay a ferryman to cross the river Styx. In modern times the practice has been observed in the United States and Canada: visitors leave coins on the gravestones of former military personnel. [1]
Charon's obol is sometimes specifically called a naulum (Greek ναῦλον, "boat fare"). [7] The Christian-era lexicographer Hesychius gives "the obol for the dead" as one of the meanings of δανάκη, [8] and the Suda defines the danake as a coin traditionally buried with the dead for paying the ferryman to cross the Acheron. [9]
Attic red-figure lekythos attributed to the Tymbos painter showing Charon welcoming a soul into his boat, c. 500–450 BC. In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (/ ˈ k ɛər ɒ n,-ən / KAIR-on, -ən; Ancient Greek: Χάρων Ancient Greek pronunciation: [kʰá.rɔːn]) is a psychopomp, the ferryman of the Greek underworld.
The mouth was sometimes sealed with a token or talisman, referred to as "Charon's obol" if a coin was used, and explained as payment for the ferryman of the dead to convey the soul from the world of the living to the world of the dead. [6]
Webb for the first time detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide - both frozen as solids - on the surface of Charon, a spherical body about 750 miles (1,200 km) in diameter, researchers said ...
Charon's obol" was a coin placed in or on the mouth of the deceased. [64] The custom is recorded in literary sources and attested by archaeology, and sometimes occurs in contexts that suggest it may have been imported to Rome as were the mystery religions that promised initiates salvation or special passage in the afterlife.