The Lost Coin: Hours of the Cross

Product Information

A.D.H. Bivar, " Achaemenid Coins, Weights and Measures," in The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 622–623, with citations on the archaeological evidence in note 5.

Stevens, "Charon’s Obol," pp. 224–225; Morris, Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity, p. 106. Greek and Roman literary sources from the 5th century BC through the 2nd century AD are consistent in attributing four characteristics to Charon's obol: 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.

Coin Legend

On February 3, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. Richardson suffered a plane crash which cost them their lives. If not for a coin toss, Valens life would have been spared. Prior to the flight, Valens and Holly’s guitar player (Tommy Allsup) flipped a coin to determine who would get to fly in the plane chartered by Holly. Valens won, and the rest is unfortunate history. In 1971, Don McLean would memorialize this day as “The Day the Music Died” in his hit song “American Pie”. Secretariat, the Triple Crown horse Discoveries of a single coin near the skull in tombs of the Levant suggest a similar practice among Phoenicians in the Persian period. [51] Jewish ossuaries sometimes contain a single coin; for example, in an ossuary bearing the inscriptional name "Miriam, daughter of Simeon," a coin minted during the reign of Herod Agrippa I, dated 42/43 AD, was found in the skull's mouth. [52] Although the placement of a coin within the skull is uncommon in Jewish antiquity and was potentially an act of idolatry, rabbinic literature preserves an allusion to Charon in a lament for the dead "tumbling aboard the ferry and having to borrow his fare." Boats are sometimes depicted on ossuaries or the walls of Jewish crypts, and one of the coins found within a skull may have been chosen because it depicted a ship. [53] Western Europe [ edit ]

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: From its 7th-century BC beginnings in western Anatolia, ancient coinage was viewed not as distinctly secular, but as a form of communal trust bound up in the ties expressed by religion. The earliest known coin-hoard from antiquity was found buried in a pot within the foundations of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, dating to the mid-6th century BC. The iconography of gods and various divine beings appeared regularly on coins issued by Greek cities and later by Rome. [128] The effect of monetization on religious practice is indicated by notations in Greek calendars of sacrifices pertaining to fees for priests and prices for offerings and victims. 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. [129] Upright cross with truncated angled arms; essentially a variant of the swastika; uncommon, but can be found in the arms of Gordon of Hallhead. [20] Also known as a cross cramponny or cramponée, a fylfot, a gammate or gammadion cross, or tetragammadion, as it were combining four capital Greek letters Γ ( gamma). David M. Robinson, "The Residential Districts and the Cemeteries at Olynthos," American Journal of Archaeology 36 (1932), p. 125. The patriarchal cross or double cross was used in Byzantine seals since the early medieval period. It was adopted in the coat of arms of Hungary in the late 12th century, and also appears on the more recent coat of arms of Slovakia.Metal coins were first manufactured as early as the 7th century BC, however, the first accounts of the practice of coin flipping can be found in ancient Rome. During this period, Romans called the game “navia aut caput,” which translates to “ship or head.” This is because some Roman coins had a ship on one side and the head (or “bust”) of the emperor on the other side. Julius Caesar himself endorsed the coin flip in 49 BC when he began minting coins which depicted his name. During this time, flips were utilized to make some very serious decisions, including those related to criminality, property, and marriage. The outcomes of those flips were considered to be legally binding. 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. In his book titled Grooks, the Danish poet Piet Hein included a poem entitled “A Psychological Tip” which relates to the Freudian Coin Toss. The poem reads as follows: