Märit Gaimster, "Scandinavian Gold Bracteates in Britain," Medieval Archaeology 36 (1992), pdf here; see also Morten Axboe and Anne Kromann, "DN ODINN P F AUC? Germanic ‘Imperial Portraits’ on Scandinavian gold bracteates," Acta Hyperborea 4 (1992).
archive.org
Grabka, "Christian Viaticum", p. 13, with extensive references; Rennell Rodd, The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece (D. Stott, 1892), 2nd edition, p. 126.
Frank Barlow, William Rufus (Yale University Press, 2nd ed. 2000), p. 420 online. On the season, see The Master of Game by Edward, Second Duke of York: The Oldest English Book on Hunting, ed. W.A. and F. Baillie-Grohman, with a foreword by Theodore Roosevelt (New York: 1909), p. 215 online.
Ian Morris, Death-ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 106 online.
Paulinus of Nola, Vita Sancti Ambrosii 47.3, Patrologia Latina 14:43 (Domini corpus, quo accepto, ubi glutivit, emisit spiritum, bonum viaticum secum ferens). The Eucharist for the dying was prescribed by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, but without using the term viaticum. Discussion in Frederick S. Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Cornell University Press 1990), p. 33. Paxton, along with other scholars he cites, holds that administering the Eucharist to the dying was already established practice in the 4th century; Éric Rebillard has argued that instances in the 3rd-4th centuries were exceptions, and that not until the 6th century was the viaticum administered on a regular basis (In hora mortis: Evolution de la pastorale chrétienne de la mort aux IV et V siècles dan l’Occident latin, École Française de Rome 1994). See also Paxton's review of this work, American Historical Review 101 (1996) 1528. Those who view the practice as earlier think it was used as a Christian alternative to Charon's obol; for those who hold that it is later, the viaticum is seen as widely administered only after it was no longer regarded as merely a disguised pre-Christian tradition. Further discussion under Christian transformation below.
Original lekythos described by Arthur Fairbanks, Athenian Lekythoi with Outline Drawing in Matt Color on a White Ground (Macmillan, 1914), p. 85 online.
Because neither adult males (who were expected to be prepared to face immiment death in the course of military service) nor elderly women are represented, Charon’s gentler demeanor may be intended to ease the transition for those who faced an unexpected or untimely death. Full discussion in Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, "Reading" Greek Death: To the End of the Classical Period (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 316 ff., limited preview here.
L.V. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee: A Study in Ethnology, Archaeology, and Tradition," Folklore 68 (1957), pp. 264–268; J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (JHU Press, 1996), p. 49; on the ambiguity of later evidence, Barbara J. Little, Text-aided Archaeology (CFC Press, 1991), p. 139; pierced Anglo-Saxon coins and their possible amuletic or magical function in burials, T.S.N. Moorhead, "Roman Bronze Coinage in Sub-Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon England," in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250: Essays in Honor of Marion Archibald (Brill, 2006), pp. 99–109.
For description of an example from Athens, see H.B. Walters, Catalogue of the Terracottas in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities (British Museum, 1903), p. 186.
L.V. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee," Folklore 68 (1957), p. 261; Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?" Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), p. 210; Karen Stears, "Losing the Picture: Change and Continuity in Athenian Grave Monuments in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C.," in Word and Image in Ancient Greece, edited by N.K. Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 222. Examples of lekythoi depicting Charon described by Arthur Fairbanks, Athenian Lekythoi with Outline Drawing in Matt Color on a White Ground (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 13–18, 29, 39, 86–88, 136–138, examples with coin described pp. 173–174 and 235. Example with coin also noted by Edward T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum (London 1903), pp. 370–371. White-ground lekythos depicting Charon’s ferry and Hermes guiding a soul, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, image and discussion online and archived. Vase paintings from The Theoi Project: Charon by the Reed Painter; Charon by the Tymbos Painter; Charon and Hermes by the Sabouroff Painter; Charon and Hermes Psychopomp.
See Tamila Mgaloblishvili, Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus (Routledge, 1998), pp. 35–36.
Craig A. Evans, "Excavating Caiaphas, Pilate, and Simon of Cyrene: Assessing the Literary and Archaeological Evidence" in Jesus and Archaeology (Eerdmans Publishing, 2006), p. 329 online, especially note 13; Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 156 online, especially note 97 and its interpretational caveat.
Craig A. Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (Baylor University Press, 2003), pp. 106–107. The allusion to Charon is cited as b. Mo'ed Qatan 28b.
Statistics collected from multiple sources by Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. 223–226; statistics offered also by Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?," Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), pp. 210–213; see also G. Halsall, "The Origins of the Reihengräberzivilisation: Forty Years On," in Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 199ff.
Bonnie Effros, "Grave Goods and the Ritual Expression of Identity," in From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms, edited by Thomas F. X. Noble (Routledge, 2006), pp. 204–205, citing Bailey K. Young, "Paganisme, christianisation et rites funéraires mérovingiens," Archéologie médiévale 7 (1977) 46–49, limited preview online.
David A. Hinton, Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 32–33.
Gareth Williams, "The Circulation and Function of Coinage in Conversion-Period England," in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250 (Brill, 2006), pp. 147–179, especially p. 178, citing Philip Grierson, "The Purpose of the Sutton Hoo Coins," Antiquity 44 (1970) 14–18; Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries) (Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 124–125, noting that "not all scholars accept this view"; British Museum, "Gold coins and ingots from the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo," image of coin hoard here; further discussion by Alan M. Stahl, "The Nature of the Sutton Hoo Coin Parcel," in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo (University of Minnesota Press, 1992), p. 9ff.
Marcus Louis Rautman, Daily Life in the Byzantine Empire (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006), p. 11.
Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," p. 226; G.J.C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction (Leiden 1995), p. 103, with documentation in note 8; Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (Yale University Press, 1997), sources given p. 218, note 20; in Christian graves of 4th-century Gaul, Bonnie Effros, Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul (Macmillan, 2002), p. 82; on the difficulty of distinguishing Christian from traditional burials in 4th-century Gaul, Mark J. Johnson, "Pagan-Christian Burial Practices of the Fourth Century: Shared Tombs?" Journal of Early Christian Studies 5 (1997) 37–59.
Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (Routledge, 2007) p. 26 online p. 28 online, and pp. 32, 44, 46, 162, 214.
Gareth Williams, "The Circulation and Function of Coinage in Conversion-Period England, c. AD 580–675," in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250 (Brill, 2006), pp. 166–167; fuller discussion of the Christian practice by Mary Margaret Fulghum, "Coins Used as Amulets in Late Antiquity," in Between Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and Society (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), pp. 139–148 online.
Bruce Lincoln, "The Ferryman of the Dead," Journal of Indo-European Studies 8 (1980) p. 41; Lincoln’s purpose at the time was to establish the centum-satem bifurcation of the Proto-Indo-European ferryman mytheme, and he does not discuss payment of a fee. For a very concise summary on the Indo-European afterlife, see Benjamin W. Fortson IV, "The Afterlife," in Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction (Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 25.
See Friedrich Solmsen, "Greek Ideas of the Hereafter in Virgil’s Roman Epic," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 112 (1968) 8–14, especially pp. 9–11 on cautions regarding the "Orphic" label; more extended discussion by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the ‘Orphic’ Gold Tablets (Cambridge University Press, 2004), limited preview here.
Franz Cumont, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism: Lectures Delivered at Yale University as the Silliman lectures (Yale University Press, 1922), p. 84.
In antiquity, the most common etymology was a mercibus, from merces ("merchandise"); see Michael Paschalis, Virgil's Aeneid (Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 58 online. In De civitate Dei, St. Augustine proposes an etymology from medius currens, "running in the middle," explaining that "language 'runs' like a sort of mediator between men'"; cited by Antoine Faivre, The Eternal Hermes (Red Wheel/Weiser, 1995), p. 82 online.
H.S. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, vol. 2 (Brill, 1993), p. 168, with reference to Hendrik Wagenvoort, "Diva Angerona," Mnemosyne 9 (1941) 215–217 and (1980) 21–24, reprinted in Pietas: Selected Studies in Roman Religion (Brill, 1980) online.
Ennius, Acherontem nunc obibo, ubi mortis thesauri obiacent ("I will cross the Acheron, where the treasuries of death lie hidden"), from the lost tragedy Iphigenia; the line is spoken by the protagonist as she faces the prospect of becoming a human sacrifice. The phrase "treasures of Death" is original to the Latin poet's elaboration of his Greek model; see Eduard Fraenkel, Plautine Elements in Plautus, translated by Tomas Drevikovsky and Frances Muecke (Oxford University Press, 2007; originally published in German 1922), p. 121 online.
John T. Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2005), p. 856 online; also F. Kaul, "Gundestrup," in Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (de Gruyter, 1999), vol. 13, p. 201 online.
John K. Davies, "Temples, Credit, and the Circulation of Money," in Money and Its Uses in the Ancient Greek World (Oxford University Press, 2004) p. 120 online. See also Michael Vickers, "Golden Greece: Relative Values, Minae, and Temple Inventories," American Journal of Archaeology 94 (1990) 613–625.
Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult of Souls and the Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks (Routledge 1925; republished 2000), pp. 245–246 online.
Richard Seaford, Money and the Early Greek Mind: Homer, Philosophy, Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 143, 150, 259, 284, 306–308, limited preview online.
Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt (Cincinnati Art Museum, 1996), p. 74 online.
Pierre Lombard, "Jewellery and Goldware," in Traces of Paradise: The Archaeology of Bahrain 2500 BC-300 AD: An Exhibition at the Brunei Gallery, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1, 12 July-15 September 2000 (I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. 180. These are viewable online.
Discussed at length by John Cuthbert Lawson, Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion (Cambridge University Press, 1910), pp. 108–114. Rituals for communicating with the dead or by means of the dead discussed passim by Daniel Ogden, Greek and Roman Necromancy (Princeton University Press, 2001). See also Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?" Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), p. 215. Eric A. Ivison presented the paper "Charon’s Obol or ApotropaicTalisman? Coins in medieval Byzantine Graves" at a round table on ritual and ceremony during the International Byzantine Congress, held August 2001 in Paris. For silence in religious ceremonies of antiquity, particularly the mysteries, see N.J. Richardson, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), on 2.478–9 as cited by E.J. Kenney, text, translation and commentary, Cupid and Psyche (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 214, referring to Apuleius, Metamorphoses 6.18, below.
James M. Redfield, The Locrian Maidens: Love and Death in Greek Italy (Princeton University Press, 2003), p. 375 online.
Frank Barlow, William Rufus (Yale University Press, 2nd ed. 2000), p. 420 online. On the season, see The Master of Game by Edward, Second Duke of York: The Oldest English Book on Hunting, ed. W.A. and F. Baillie-Grohman, with a foreword by Theodore Roosevelt (New York: 1909), p. 215 online.
For example, J.H.G. Grattan and Charles Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine. Illustrated Specially from the Semi-Pagan Text Lacnunga (Oxford University Press, 1952); Felix Grendon, Anglo-Saxon Charms (Folcroft Library, 1974), passim (Grendon is most interested, however, in the interpenetration of Christian elements and traditional magic); Anne van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Routledge, 2002), p. 52ff., with cautions about disentangling various strands of the magical tradition; Karen Louise Jolly, "Locating the Charms: Medicine, Liturgy, and Folklore," in Popular Religion in Late Saxon England (University of North Caroline Press, 1996), p. 96ff.
J.A. MacCullough, The Mythology of All Races: Celtic and Slavic (Boston 1918), vol. 3, p. 60 online, says the story demonstrates "how the memory of the Tuatha Dé Danann and their powers survived into later centuries."
For translations, see Standish H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica (I–XXXI) (London 1892), pp. 311–324 full text online, or the less archaizing Lady Gregory, Part I Book IV: Manannan at Play, from Gods and Fighting Men (1904), Sacred Texts edition online.
William Hurd, A New Universal History of the Religious Rites, Ceremonies, and Customs of the Whole World … together with the History of the Reformed Churches (Blackburn 1799), p. 552.
Quand Don Juan descendit vers l'onde souterraine / Et lorsqu'il eut donné son obole à Charon … ("Don Juan aux enfers," lines 1–2). Dual language edition of the poem in French and English online.
britishmuseum.org
Gareth Williams, "The Circulation and Function of Coinage in Conversion-Period England," in Coinage and History in the North Sea World, c. AD 500–1250 (Brill, 2006), pp. 147–179, especially p. 178, citing Philip Grierson, "The Purpose of the Sutton Hoo Coins," Antiquity 44 (1970) 14–18; Philip Grierson and Mark Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage: The Early Middle Ages (5th–10th Centuries) (Cambridge University Press, 2007), vol. 1, pp. 124–125, noting that "not all scholars accept this view"; British Museum, "Gold coins and ingots from the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo," image of coin hoard here; further discussion by Alan M. Stahl, "The Nature of the Sutton Hoo Coin Parcel," in Voyage to the Other World: The Legacy of Sutton Hoo (University of Minnesota Press, 1992), p. 9ff.
John Chrysostom, Instructions to Catechumens, Second Instruction 171, Christian Classics Ethereal Library edition online; discussed by Mary Margaret Fulghum, "Coins Used as Amulets in Late Antiquity," in Between Magic and Religion (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), p. 144.
Sarah Kay, "The Life of the Dead Body: Death and the Sacred in the chansons de geste," Yale French Studies 86 (1994), p. 98. René Girard himself has stated that his work shows "that Judaism and Christianity exist in a continuity with archaic religions" (interview with Grant Kaplan, First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life, November 6, 2008, online and archived).
florin.ms
Nic Peeters and Judy Oberhausen, "L’Arte della memoria: John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and the Tomb of His Daughter Mary," from Marble Silence, Words on Stone: Florence’s English Cemetery, The City and the Book III International Conference 3–5 June 2004, online; Simon Poë, "Mythology and Symbolism in Two Works of Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s Maturity," Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 12 (2003) 35–61.
fornvannen.se
Signe Horn Fuglesang, "Viking and Medieval Amulets in Scandinavia," Fornvännen 84 (1989), p. 22, with citations, full text here.
getty.edu
Roy Kotansky, "Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed Greek Amulets," in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 116. The Getty Museum owns an outstanding example of a 4th-century BC Orphic prayer sheet from Thessaly, a gold-leaf rectangle measuring about 1 by 1½ inches (2.54 by 3.81 cm), that may be viewed online.
guldgubber.de
Sharon Radke and Rudolf Simek, "Gullgubber: Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?," in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions (Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp, 262–263 (see also "Interpretations" online.Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
inist.fr
cat.inist.fr
A. Destrooper-Georgiades, Témoignages des monnaies dans les cultes funéraires à Chypre à l’époque achéménide (Pl. I) (Paris: Gabalda, 2001), with English summary at CNRS’s Cat.inist catalogue.
iranica.com
Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Death among Zoroastrians"Archived 2005-03-18 at the Wayback Machine,
citing Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism: Zoroastrianism Under Macedonian and Roman Rule (Brill, 1991), pp. 66 and 191, and Mary Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 155.
metmuseum.org
L.V. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee," Folklore 68 (1957), p. 261; Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?" Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), p. 210; Karen Stears, "Losing the Picture: Change and Continuity in Athenian Grave Monuments in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C.," in Word and Image in Ancient Greece, edited by N.K. Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 222. Examples of lekythoi depicting Charon described by Arthur Fairbanks, Athenian Lekythoi with Outline Drawing in Matt Color on a White Ground (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 13–18, 29, 39, 86–88, 136–138, examples with coin described pp. 173–174 and 235. Example with coin also noted by Edward T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum (London 1903), pp. 370–371. White-ground lekythos depicting Charon’s ferry and Hermes guiding a soul, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, image and discussion online and archived. Vase paintings from The Theoi Project: Charon by the Reed Painter; Charon by the Tymbos Painter; Charon and Hermes by the Sabouroff Painter; Charon and Hermes Psychopomp.
mfa.org
Eva Keuls, "Mystery Elements in Menander's Dyscolus," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 100 (1969), pp. 214–215, further citations in notes 26 and 27. The cameo is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, information online.
Grabka, "Christian Viaticum," pp. 2–3. Influence can be hard to establish or disprove; Raymond A. Dart, "Death Ships in South West Africa and South-East Asia," South African Archaeological Bulletin 17 (1962) 231–234, thought it possible that African carved "ships of the dead" were influenced by Egyptian beliefs or even the concept of Charon's ferry. To illustrate the difficulty of establishing influence, the discovery of an 8th-century BC stele in present-day Turkey, announced in November 2008, is regarded as indicating the "dynamics of cultural contact and exchange in the borderlands of antiquity where Indo-European and Semitic people interacted in the Iron Age", as reported by John Noble Wilford, "Found: An Ancient Monument to the Soul," New York Times (November 18, 2008), online.
poetryfoundation.org
Published in North (Oxford University Press, 1976). Text of Singing Schoolonline.
Lucian, On Funerals 10 (the dialogue also known as Of Mourning), in Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," p. 218.
Lucian, "Dialogues of the Dead" 22; A.L.M. Cary, "The Appearance of Charon in the Frogs," Classical Review 51 (1937) 52–53, citing the description of Furtwängler, Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 1905, p. 191.
For translations, see Standish H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica (I–XXXI) (London 1892), pp. 311–324 full text online, or the less archaizing Lady Gregory, Part I Book IV: Manannan at Play, from Gods and Fighting Men (1904), Sacred Texts edition online.
Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica6.44; Richard E. DeMaris, "Corinthian Religion and Baptism for the Dead (1 Corinthians 15:29): Insights from Archaeology and Anthropology," Journal of Biblical Literature 114 (1995), p. 672.
thefreelibrary.com
Jonathan Allison, " 'Friendship's Garland' and the manuscripts of Seamus Heaney's 'Fosterage'," Yearbook of English Studies 2005 online.
L.V. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee," Folklore 68 (1957), p. 261; Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?" Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), p. 210; Karen Stears, "Losing the Picture: Change and Continuity in Athenian Grave Monuments in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C.," in Word and Image in Ancient Greece, edited by N.K. Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 222. Examples of lekythoi depicting Charon described by Arthur Fairbanks, Athenian Lekythoi with Outline Drawing in Matt Color on a White Ground (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 13–18, 29, 39, 86–88, 136–138, examples with coin described pp. 173–174 and 235. Example with coin also noted by Edward T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum (London 1903), pp. 370–371. White-ground lekythos depicting Charon’s ferry and Hermes guiding a soul, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, image and discussion online and archived. Vase paintings from The Theoi Project: Charon by the Reed Painter; Charon by the Tymbos Painter; Charon and Hermes by the Sabouroff Painter; Charon and Hermes Psychopomp.
On greed among the dead, see also Vergil, Georgics 2.492, "the loud roar of greedy Acheron"; also Statius, Thebaid 4.474, "realms of insatiable Death."
On greed among the dead, see also Vergil, Georgics 2.492, "the loud roar of greedy Acheron"; also Statius, Thebaid 4.474, "realms of insatiable Death."
uca.edu
libro.uca.edu
Stephen McKenna, "Paganism and Pagan Survivals in Spain During the Fourth Century," The Library of Iberian Resources Online, additional references note 39.
J. Patout Burns, "Death and Burial in Christian Africa," paperArchived 2008-12-03 at the Wayback Machine delivered to the North American Patristics Society, May 1997.
L.V. Grinsell, "The Ferryman and His Fee," Folklore 68 (1957), p. 261; Keld Grinder-Hansen, "Charon’s Fee in Ancient Greece?" Acta Hyperborea 3 (1991), p. 210; Karen Stears, "Losing the Picture: Change and Continuity in Athenian Grave Monuments in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C.," in Word and Image in Ancient Greece, edited by N.K. Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes (Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 222. Examples of lekythoi depicting Charon described by Arthur Fairbanks, Athenian Lekythoi with Outline Drawing in Matt Color on a White Ground (New York: Macmillan, 1914), pp. 13–18, 29, 39, 86–88, 136–138, examples with coin described pp. 173–174 and 235. Example with coin also noted by Edward T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum (London 1903), pp. 370–371. White-ground lekythos depicting Charon’s ferry and Hermes guiding a soul, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, image and discussion online and archived. Vase paintings from The Theoi Project: Charon by the Reed Painter; Charon by the Tymbos Painter; Charon and Hermes by the Sabouroff Painter; Charon and Hermes Psychopomp.
Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Death among Zoroastrians"Archived 2005-03-18 at the Wayback Machine,
citing Mary Boyce and Frantz Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism: Zoroastrianism Under Macedonian and Roman Rule (Brill, 1991), pp. 66 and 191, and Mary Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (Clarendon Press, 1977), p. 155.
Sharon Radke and Rudolf Simek, "Gullgubber: Relics of Pre-Christian Law Rituals?," in Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions (Nordic Academic Press, 2006), pp, 262–263 (see also "Interpretations" online.Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
Sarah Kay, "The Life of the Dead Body: Death and the Sacred in the chansons de geste," Yale French Studies 86 (1994), p. 98. René Girard himself has stated that his work shows "that Judaism and Christianity exist in a continuity with archaic religions" (interview with Grant Kaplan, First Things: The Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life, November 6, 2008, online and archived).
J. Patout Burns, "Death and Burial in Christian Africa," paperArchived 2008-12-03 at the Wayback Machine delivered to the North American Patristics Society, May 1997.
