page_title: Orphism (religion)
section_title: Afterlife
hierarchical_section_title: Orphism (religion) / Afterlife
caption_attribution_description: English: Gold Orphic Tablet with Case in the British Museum. Gold tablet with an Orphic inscription and the pendant case that contained it. The inscription warns the soul not to drink from a particular spring in Hades, but to seek one by the Lake of Memory, where, after drinking, it shall be equal with other souls. Museum number 1843,0724.3 BM Italiano: Lamina orfica (Petelia, mm 45x27) IV sec. a.C.; British Museum. Testo in greco e traduzione in italiano e in inglese nella pagina di discussione
context_page_description: Orphism is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, as well as from the Thracians, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into the Greek underworld and returned. Orphics revered Dionysus and Persephone. Orphism has been described as a reform of the earlier Dionysian religion, involving a re-interpretation or re-reading of the myth of Dionysus and a re-ordering of Hesiod's Theogony, based in part on pre-Socratic philosophy.
  The central focus of Orphism is the suffering and death of the god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, which forms the basis of Orphism's central myth. According to this myth, the infant Dionysus is killed, torn apart, and consumed by the Titans. In retribution, Zeus strikes the Titans with a thunderbolt, turning them to ash. From these ashes, humanity is born. In Orphic belief, this myth describes humanity as having a dual nature: body, inherited from the Titans, and a divine spark or soul, inherited from Dionysus.
context_section_description: Surviving written fragments show a number of beliefs about the afterlife similar to those in the "Orphic" mythology about Dionysus' death and resurrection. Bone tablets found in Olbia (5th century BC) carry short and enigmatic inscriptions like: "Life. Death. Life. Truth. Dio(nysus). Orphics." The function of these bone tablets is unknown.
  Gold-leaf tablets found in graves from Thurii, Hipponium, Thessaly and Crete (4th century BC and after) give instructions to the dead. Although these thin tablets are often highly fragmentary, collectively they present a shared scenario of the passage into the afterlife. When the deceased arrives in the underworld, he is expected to confront obstacles. He must take care not to drink of Lethe ("Forgetfulness"), but of the pool of Mnemosyne ("Memory"). He is provided with formulaic expressions with which to present himself to the guardians of the afterlife.
  I am a son of Earth and starry sky. I am parched with thirst and am dying; but quickly grant me cold water from the Lake of Memory to drink.
  Other gold leaves offer instructions for addressing the rulers of the underworld:
  Now you have died and now you have come into being, O thrice happy one, on this same day. Tell Persephone that the Bacchic One himself released you.
caption: Gold orphic tablet and case found in Petelia, southern Italy (British Museum)[26]
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