Talk:Charun/Archive 1

message: Trojans in Italy? 
I thought that was a Roman myth (popularised in the Aeneid) T@nn 16:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

message: This edit stabbed me right in the eye: "Once there, he would use the hammer he always carried to bash their souls."
Yikes. Wikipedia tells us that we must believe in blind faith (blind = senseless) that people who've read next to nothing, nor have even analysed what little they've managed to read, on a particular subject are honestly capable of "helping". We are also assured that this is in no way a sign of human devolution but a sign of pro bono global cooperation.
I'm 99% sure that Charun doesn't "bash people's souls" with his hammer because he doesn't carry a hammer! It's not like this is some Black and Decker hammer you can get at Walmart for half price, people! Unplug your minds from the 21st century and walk like an Etruscan. This hammer is special since it's double-bladed. What could you possibly use a double-bladed hammer for in the real world, honestly?!
This "hammer" is properly called a labrys, a purely religious symbol like the christian cross or the Star of David that has no function in reality but speaks only of the Etruscans' view of the afterworld. The labrys was widespread in Greece, the Aegean and Western Turkey, coincidently from whence the Etruscans originate (nb. Herodotus). So now you all know what's going on and you won't repeat this acerebral simulacrum again, yes? Good.
--Glengordon01 10:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Terpening refers to Charun as "a monster similar to demons in Chaldean civilization, or to Siva and Kali in India".--Scottandrewhutchins 19:43, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

text: "No occurences of 'Charun' were found in the document."  Therefore, by Wikipedia standards of no original research, it is a non-source.   Learn how to use Wikipedia before you start misusing jargon like "vandalism".  You're not even spelling Terpening's name correctly, which shows that you're contemptible and imprecise.  Your fervor shows you to be the more infantile one, since you're not being at all civil about this, when you're the one breaking the rules.Scottandrewhutchins 02:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charun's hammer 

message: ::He presented the dead with boots and horses to take them to the Underworld.
This sentence sounds suspect like most everything else discussed in Etruscan mythology. For what purpose would Charun do this? Are the dead shoeless? Why would they require boots? I would really like to know the source of this sentence. (I mean, a real source, not off of flakey Wiccan sites who all copy each other's content.) I'm considering just deleting it and letting those who object to this action justify its re-entry. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do... --Glengordon01 14:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boots and horses for the dead? 

message: Stop inserting nonsense from sci-fi books. No, Encyclopedia of Monsters does not constitute an academic source. Get real. Adding the more generic "Underworld" link when there is already such a link at the very beginning of the article ("Charun is the psychopomp of the Etruscan underworld known as Aita") is more of your petty ego-inflation. This adds absolutely nothing to the article except your name tag.
The Origin of the Etruscans by Robert S. P. Beekes (p. 31-32) is a more valid academic source then Jeff Rovin's sci-fi novels, quite clearly. Since Beekes himself is quoting from an earlier source, it shows that it's understood in academic circles that Etruscans incorporated the labrys motif in their artwork. Other deities from surrounding contemporaneous cultures (which I've added to the article now) nail home what the true purpose of Charun's hammer really is, regardless of how many low-standard, non-academic publications may have repeated countless times the same rot you attempt to infuse into the article.
Perverting "sourced" to mean "any book of low standards" and provoking people into petty philosophical arguments is the sign of a vandal, Scottandrewhutchins. If we have to find some academic to specifically state for ignorant dolts: "Oh yes, Charun is NOT bashing souls with a hammer and DOES carry a bipennis" we'll be at this for the next 200 years trying to disprove an infinite heap of nonsense instead of moving forward.
You claim to have degrees according to your own bio. So then, doesn't your alma mater have a library where you can locate more sensible literature than Encyclopedia of Monsters? I shiver at the thought that your university could be so underfunded that you're honestly unable.
--Glengordon01 21:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Scottandrewhutchins|Scottandrewhutchins]], please stop your vandalism 

message: You know, this inane debate about "Charun bashing souls" led me to a sudden revelation. It's suspicious that Babylonians, from which the Etruscans probably derived their ritual of haruspicy during their stay in Lydia (Herodotus I.94) before 1200 BCE, believed also in certain things about the underworld which are perhaps parallel to the Etruscans. 
The goddess Ereshkigal is basically the embodiment of the underworld itself while Nergal is the king of this domain. It seems to me that the two are straight-forward to correlate with Vanth and Charun, respectively. Just as Nergal is the god of pestilence and war, so too would Charun be. By holding the labrys, Charun then displays his authority over the underworld. Vanth always trails along then for an obvious reason: She is both the consort of Charun and the underworld personified. 
Indeed, in one artifact (picture here), we see Charun holding both a sword and the labrys while guiding a horseman to the underworld as Vanth leads. This is a clear sign that Charun's either absurdly over-prepared or that Charun's hammer isn't for "head cracking". Instead, the labrys here is a symbol of his divine authority as usual and that extra sword then is a symbol of his connection with war, just as we find with Nergal. Vanth is placed ahead of the horseman and Charun probably because Charun, a psychopomp afterall, is pushing the deceased on horseback to the underworld while Vanth represents the underworld destination in human form.
I think it's an interesting interpretation of Etruscan myth and I'm just curious (but doubtful considering the abysmal state of literature on Etruscan culture/religion/language) that others might have spotted a reference that states this outright. I can't believe I'm the only one noticing this. 
--Glengordon01 09:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like a mallet, not a labrys, and explains Rovin's "some accounts make it a sword.". --Scottandrewhutchins 21:38, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charun/Vanth versus Nergal/Ereshkigal 

message: I don't currently have access to Rovin, but that might have been where his source got the idea that Charun presents horses to the souls of the dead for their travel. Rovin sucks at bibliography.  I don't know how he gets away with it.   I don't know if Terpening mentions this, since I don't have acces to it right now, either (I got them both out of libraries in another state and haven't checked my library here for them).  Scottandrewhutchins 14:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Jeff Rovin propoganda 

message: The French Wikipedia Charun page says that Charun tortures the souls of the dead, although not what with.  Torture is definite hyperbole for what the Greek Charon does. Scottandrewhutchins 19:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: French page

message: The Italian Wikipedia Charun page says "il colpo mortale con un martello".  I doubt Jeff Rovin reads Italian.  You may not like it, but Charun using a "hammer" is not a piece of science fiction, and Glengordon01's removals of it are vandalism. Scottandrewhutchins
What is your problem? It's pathetic. I can read Italian and French, thanks. And when the Italian and French Wikipedias decide to source their garbage, then you can have a dance on my grave, okay? Till then, you're an obnoxious child that will have to be reprimanded for excessive posts about a very beaten dead horse. --Glengordon01 00:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Italian page

message: Okiedokie, make that four languages now. I posted a comment to Discusión:Mitología etrusca on the Spanish Wikipedia. I can't even speak Spanish. Let's see who inputs. I'm curious what the world has to say actually but still doubt there will be solid facts around. I should have polyglotted like this before :) Quite frankly, Scott, the least you could do now is cover the Germanic or Chinese languages while we're waiting to try and prove your horse dung. Don't be a lazy scholar now. Get snappy :) --Glengordon01 06:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spanish page

message: Clarifications from Terpening:   
- Without commenting on the original Wikipedia article on Charun, let me clarify one or two points, since my book on Charon and the Crossing has occasionally been cited in this discussion (which, I have to admit, I've only skimmed in haste).   
- 1) I deal with the transformations in literature of the underworld boatman from his first appearances in classical literature, through the Middle Ages (primarily Italian), and the Italian Renaissance. I'm interested in literary representations of Charon, though I do include illustrations of Charon (and Charun) in art, without discussing them however.   
- 2) I deal specifically with the Etruscan Charun in the introduction and as part of a very brief presentation of what "Comparative mythologists in the late nineteenth century" had to say about a ferryman of the dead. Quite often, these comparisons are far-fetched. (I'm not referring to Charun when making this statement.)   
- 3)My comments on the Etruscan figure reference both Franz De Ruyt (1934) and Serafino Rocco (1897), as noted in the discussion (thus the use of the term "hammer" or "mallet").   
- 4)Re: "What could you possibly use a double-bladed hammer for in the real world, honestly?!" How about a sledge hammer? They look remarkably similar to what Charun is holding in the illustration on pp. 14, 45, 81,and 91 in my book. Compare these "mallet"-like implements to the labrys on Wikipedia. Quite different. The so-called blade (in the Charun scenes) is not curved as it is in a double-bladed axe. Compare an Etruscan axe (such as the fasces, an example of which can be found at this site http://www.ronterpening.com/extras/fasc_symb.htm) to what Charun holds and they're quite different. The "mallet"-like implement seen on the "Sacrifice of Trojan prisoners with Charun," a reconstruction found in the Archaeological Museum in Florence is CLEARLY not an axe. It has round objects at each end of the "mallet." Looks like croquet!   
- 5) What about the Charun-like figure in the Roman Colosseum, used to dispatch (with a mallet, if I remember correctly) any victims not yet dead (and about to be pulled out of the gate of death)? Can't remember the source for this (it's been 20 years since I worked on Charon) and don't believe I mentioned it in my book, but I do recall reading about it somewhere. [No need to attack this as a vague reminiscence; that's all I'm presenting it as.]   
- 6) There are numerous depictions on sarcophagi of Charun leading the defunct, seen on horseback (the dead, not Charun).   
- 7) There are depictions (identified as Charun) on Etruscan amphorae, showing him with, not a caduceus, but the same object carried by Hermes (p. 94 and most clearly p. 100 in my book). I'm not an expert on these visual images but it almost looks like a Dionysian thyrsus! (Feel free to criticize this conjecture of the moment.)   
- 8)Re: Ronnie H. Terpeling. Very creative! I've occasionally used pseudonyms for books I've published, but this is not one; maybe I'll think about it for a future title.   
- 9) Krater vs crater. As an Italianist, I'm influenced by the Italian "cratere" and less concerned than some with preserving an archaic Greek spelling, even though it's more "scholarly." I checked the four English dictionaries near my desk as I write and every single one cites both usages.   
- 10) Monster, as I used it, is a synonym for "death-demon." Charun often assists at violent death (which is how I believe I may have expressed it in my book, using "assists" in the Italian sense of "assistere" (to be present at) or "attendere." Charun does have frightening features in some illustrations. That's all "monster" means--a creature who deviates from the norm (grotesquely often), thus Charun's pointed animal ears, hooked nose, big lips, snaky hair, etc. I have many images (not in the book) of Charun as a horrific figure.   
- That's it from me. I may not have grasped the crux of several of these issues, since I had time only to skim these entries, but I've tried to hit a few of the main points that reference my name and book (Charon and the Crossing: Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Transformations of a Myth).   
- Ronterp 18:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarifications from Terpening 

message: re: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Charun_dead_souls_CdM.jpg
Here we have an image of Charun leaning casually on either his double-bladed axe, as some of you would have it, or on his mallet (as others have it). Let's see, we all lean on our axes because we know they don't really cut, right? I doubt this is an axe. Since we have no written ETRUSCAN sources that refer to either object, I guess it comes down to what you can see with your own eyes, right? Everything else is the conjecture of a scholar or a layman.
Ronterp 18:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charun image 

message: re: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Charun_dead_souls_CdM.jpg
One final question any viewer should ask (when looking at the image referenced above) is this:
Would Charun be casually leaning on a religious symbol?
Or (a second question): Would he more likely casually lean on a "mallet"?
Which seems more likely? You don't have to be an expert to answer this!
Earlier, when I referred to the mallet-like object in reconstructed scene found in the Archaeological Museum in Florence, I used the term "round" for the ends of the mallet. By round, I mean in circumference. The objects at each end of the "mallet" have the shape of a hockey puck. They assuredly do not have the shape of an axe.
Ronnie H. Terpening 00:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final Question on Charun image 

message: Let's step away from personalities and look at the article itself.  It's been page protected for three weeks in a form that satisfies no one.  We're really here to get it into better shape.  Even if you'll never be best friends, it seems you are the only two Wikipedians who want to improve coverage for this bit of Etruscan mythology.  
If I saw clear evidence that one side only had violated WP:CIVIL then I would ask an administrator to take action.  What I see instead is a conversation that broke down.  That amounts to a lot of smoke which obscures the core issue: Glengordon01, the way I read policy Scottandrewhutchins has satisfied WP:V and so far you have not.  So far your citations have been just far enough off point that your conclusions constitute original research interpretations.  Please find a good topical source that states your opinion directly - you seem to know a lot about the Etruscans so that shouldn't be hard to do.  Then both opinions can go into the article. Durova 17:03, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In my first post to this page I suggested a two week cooldown to do research.  For most people it's about a one hour errand to work out an interlibrary loan request with a reference librarian.  Once you have the right books the citation itself is simple: for Marie Curie it took me ten minutes to verify two references about the nomination dynamics of her 1903 Nobel Prize.  That doesn't seem like too much to ask.  If it is too much for you, then site policy requires you to concede the point since the other editor here has already provided multiple sources.  You could always come back and add the labrys interpretation later when you have more time to get citations. Durova 22:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Call for calm