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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]
So-called "ghost coins" also appear with the dead. These are impressions of an actual coin or numismatic icon struck into a small piece of gold foil. [73] In a 5th- or 4th-century BC grave at Syracuse, Sicily, a small rectangular gold leaf stamped with a dual-faced figure, possibly Demeter/Kore, was found in the skeleton's mouth.
Charon is depicted in the art of ancient Greece. Attic funerary vases of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Charon's boat. 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 ...
Also found among the Roman coins were 72 gold aurei, dated from 18 B.C. to 47 A.D. Those coins show no signs of wear and likely came from a pile of freshly minted coins, according to the Cultural ...
The 44 gold coins were unearthed by amateur archaeologists in a field near Utrecht, Holland Ancient and rare British coins taken as ‘spoils of war’ by Romans found in Dutch field Skip to main ...
A British man who found a massive cache of ancient Roman gold and silver coins while hunting with a metal detector has a lot more modern currency in his pocket after the treasure was auctioned off ...
After 1100 BC, Greeks began to bury their dead in individual graves rather than group tombs. Athens, however, was a major exception; the Athenians normally cremated their dead and placed their ashes in an urn. [4] During the early Archaic period, Greek cemeteries became larger, but grave goods decreased.
In ancient Greece, it was generally reckoned as 1 ⁄ 6 drachma (c. 0.72 grams or 11 grains). [ 14 ] [ 15 ] Under Roman rule, it was defined as 1 ⁄ 48 Roman ounce or about 0.57 g (9 gr). [ 16 ] The apothecaries' system also reckoned the obol or obolus as 1 ⁄ 48 ounce or 1 ⁄ 2 scruple .