Talk:Charun
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[edit] Employment of Charun's hammer
This legend from the Etruscan town of Valerii which is recorded in Pseudo-Plutarch, Parallel Greek and Roman Stories would seem to suggest that the purpose of Charun's hammer was to rouse the spirit of the dead for its passage to the underworld.
When a plague had gained a wide hold on the city of Falerii, and many perished of it, an oracle was given that the terror would abate if they sacrificed a maiden to Juno each year. This superstitious practice persisted and once, as a maiden chosen by lot, Valeria Luperca, had drawn the sword, an eagle swooped down, snatched it up, and placed a wand tipped with a small hammer upon the sacrificial offerings; but the sword the eagle cast down upon a certain heifer which was grazing near the shrine. The maiden understood the import: she sacrificed the heifer, took up the hammer, and went about from house to house, tapping the sick lightly with her hammer and rousing them, bidding each of them to be well again; whence even to this day this mystic rite is performed. So Aristeides in the nineteenth book of his Italian History.
The last sentence especially refers to the Etruscan "mystic rite" of tapping the hammer. I'm not certain if this reference is too oblique to include in the Charun article itself. --Theranos 14:34, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Hammer and nail are symbols for the working of fate in Etruscan religion. We have a bronze mirror from about 320 BC, held in the Antikenmuseum Berlin that shows Athrpa (Atropos), one of the moirai, sealing the fate of the doomed pairs of lovers Turan and Atunis and Meliacr and Atlenta, holding a hammer in her right and a nail in her left hand. This particularly Etruscan variant on Greek myths is a reflection of the tradition of marking the passage of time with the ritualistic hammering in of nails at the Nortia sanctuary at Volsinii (reported by Titus Livius, who heard it from L. Cincius Alimentus). See: de Grummond/Simon (ed.):"The Religion of the Etruscans" (Austin, 2006), 52-53 Ver sacrum 01:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sources
Sources used in the article must conform to Wikipedia's standards. I see someone "archived" (removed to hide, more likely) previous discussion on the awful references used here, but that doesn't change the fact that bad sources still cannot be used. Children's books, fiction and widely generalized overview books by people misinterpreting something they think they read somewhere in one big batch sold to nonacademics who don't know any better simply cannot stay. If the text in question has other already cited quality sources then it can stay. If no quality sources can be cited by the editor who keeps pushing that info in here (or anyone else, for that matter, but we have a rel bad case of someone who doesn't understand he doesn't WP:OWN the article) then it will eventually be removed as well, but I am giving him the chance to cite it with quality sources. 216.165.158.7 16:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
- WP:AGF: I archived the page and it should be no surprise that I did it: I had left an overly long and contentious discussion untouched until the debate settled down. Nothing has been hidden: anyone who wants to review it can use the links at the top of this page. This is standard practice at Wikipedia talk pages. DurovaCharge! 21:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Edit war
Any background info on the edit warring that has taken place? —Signed, your friendly neighborhood MessedRocker. 18:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
- Look at the message right above yours for one person's take on it. For the older edit war, check the archives. Basically, to summarize, back in August there was a massive edit war (which spilled over to other language Wikipedias). One of the key issues in that edit war revolved around the quality of some of the sources used (that was far from the only issue back then). Apparently, User:216.165.158.7 wants to re-open that issue. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
