Talk:Charun/Archive2

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Axe Man

Here is a page by a guy who thought Charun carried a labrys, but changed his mind: [1]. --Scottandrewhutchins 03:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Original Research, Charun doesn't bash souls except in sci-fi land

You're stringing together random quotes from sci-fi authors and non-specialists and purposely avoiding noteworthy Etruscanologists in order to promote your own original research agenda.

Larissa Bonfante & Judith Swaddling. Etruscan Myths, University of Texas Press, 2006. p.33:

"Many scenes feature the two purely Etruscan underworld demons, Vanth and Charu, whose job is **not** to punish the dead but rather to escort them to their final destination. This is the only aspect of the Etruscan Charu, aside from his name, which connects Charu to the Greek Charon, the boatman of the dead."

So much for your "Charun bashes soul" theory. Funny how you recently trolled the French encyclopedia for something to find fault in my own edits but fail to notice these references that just don't compare to children's books like Encyclopedia of Monsters or the works of Alice K Turner (who also wrote Playboy Book of Science-Fiction... ???).--Glengordon01 11:44, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

De Grummond proves that this is emphatically not original research on my part:

"Indeed the hammer is the weapon of choice for Charu, and though most of the time he merely holds it in a menacing way, occasionally he is shown demonstrating its purpose. In a relief on the sarcophagus of the Tarquinia nobleman named Laris Pulenas, a pair of Charus swing their hammers toward the head of the central figure (Fig. X.13), probably the soul of the deceased. (Unfortunately due to the accidents of preservation, the figure is actually missing its head.) A similar usage of the hammer was maintained down into the period of the Roman Empire, when, in the gladiatorial games, a demonic character using the name of Dispater (Father Underworld) would go out into the arena and finish off the contest between two fighters. The loser, groveling in the sand, was pounded with a hammer by Dispater to make sure that he was dead." (227-228)

--Scottandrewhutchins 16:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You edited: "Larissa Bonfante and Judith Swaddling seem to disagree with de Grummond's findings about Charun's behavior."

No. It's *quite clear* she does, if you've bothered to read it! She's very clear: the bloody scenes are simply apotropaic devises, meant to ward of evil by representing the sacrifice of blood in scenes. Why don't you take a break from your subject-hijacking and actually read her book? --Glengordon01 18:58, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Why should, I, when you're not going to read de Grummond and dismiss her as rubbish because you didn't find her yourself, just like you did with Terpening? --Scottandrewhutchins 19:20, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You should because then you'd be seen as an avid learner, as opposed to a subject-hijacker looking for an ego boost. --Glengordon01 20:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the responses of others on your RFC, you're clearly projecting. --Scottandrewhutchins 20:51, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
Give it up.--Glengordon01 21:05, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, who am I kidding? ADHD is on the rise. Who's gonna read it if I don't directly quote pages 69 and 70 of her book:

"Funerary ritual was important. The many cruel and bloody scenes of battles, sacrifice, death and dismemberment in funerary art were intended to fulfil a funerary rite, apparently substituting for actual blood sacrifices carried out in honour of the dead."

And then you now understand why I quoted Arnobius who explains that the Etruscans gave offerings like this as a "form of salvation" for the deceased. Massimo Pallottino, another Etruscanologist (not on a par whatsoever with Alice K. Turner, smut author, as explained above), clearly offers doubt about the "hellish" nature of Etruscan afterlife in "The Etruscans" as well.

So with two authors spreading doubt, de Grummond is alone unless she too offers a healthy balance of perspective in her latest book. Chances are, she will have fallen into the trap of quoting authors who quote authors who quote authors like a game of telephone.

You were more eager to call me "incompetent" [2] because I didn't share your opinion whatsoever. Now that it's published reality, your foot is deeply lodged in your mouth, having implicated respected academics like Larissa Bonfante in your slander against me. --Glengordon01 19:12, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I called you incompentent because you were refusing to understand that you were breaking Wikipedia's credos regarding verifiability and original research with your edits. --Scottandrewhutchins 20:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
"I called you incompetent because..." Listen to yourself. Making excuses for your bad behaviour. --Glengordon01 21:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I found Turner with Amazon, looking up Charun. and if you'll notice, I didn't give Turner much credibility. I'm not sure why I should look into your sources when you want to ignore de Grummond and Terpening and play up Rovin and Turner, whom you can hardly say are emphasized in the article. --Scottandrewhutchins 19:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

"[...]whom you can hardly say are emphasized in the article." Oh yes, I do say. I want to see more de Grummond, more Pallottino and more Bonfante. Sci-fi should be put in a special sci-fi section. --Glengordon01 20:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

If you believe Turner is emphasized in the article, you obviously think the mere mention is anathema. That's not how Wikipedia works. "Turner, Alice K. The History of Hell. Harvest Books, 1995. pp. 7, 25. She states on the latter page, "Eurynomus could have been one of the keres or derivative of Etruscan Charun, but Pausanias does not seem to think so." " does not constitute an emphasis. You can add Pallotino and Bonafante if they are directly relavent. There's not much more to get from de Grummond beyond getting into details that are beyond encyclopedic scope. I covered all her major points, though I haven't addressed her discussion of Vanth yet. I can forward you de Grummond's entire Underworld chapter if you would like. I think she wanted you to have it. --Scottandrewhutchins 20:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Alice Turner is not an academic. To insist on propping her up with qualifications she doesn't have is a kind of original research.

Etruscan specialists, not sci-fi authors, should be prominently placed in the article. You're not going to make this article non-POV any other way. I've been clear but you're just arguing at this point, as usual. --Glengordon01 21:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

She is not promimently placed in any way. Nor is this book a work of science fiction, nor is Rovin's. I haven't given her any qualifications. All I said is that she mentions him in her book and what she says about him. That's it. It's not even in the main body of the article. The only other thing she says about him is that he is an Etruscan demon.--Scottandrewhutchins 21:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes but "demon" in this NON-CHRISTIAN context means nothing other than a "chthonic deity" who is interpreted by some to be monstrous and therefore by a stretch of imagination, evil. --Glengordon01 21:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Where did *I* say that he was evil? I never said he was evil. Even Bonafonte and Swaddling, as well as de Grummond use the term "demon". "Monster" comes from the Latin word for "show"--it's related to "demonstrate". It's not a bad word to use for Charun, even though it has picked up a negative connotation. It originally referred only to appearances. --Scottandrewhutchins 21:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

When you've typed "Charun bashes souls" based on sci-fi works, it doesn't leave people with any other reasonable impression. --Glengordon01 21:27, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You're having difficulty with this subject. So breathe and calm down.

Remember when I said that it didn't make psychological sense for an Etruscan like Laris Pulena to make a sarcophagus with angry demons swinging hammers at his head? Larissa gives the answer: apotrope. The swinging hammers of Charun help ward off evil. --Glengordon01 21:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So what would make sense is to contrast the two different observations. Everyone agrees that the information is limited. --Scottandrewhutchins 21:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly it...

... as long as these viewpoints are supported by Etruscan specialists, ie. those who make an academic career for themselves, not one of coffee-table books, sci-fi and childrens books. That's all I wanted from the beginning. --Glengordon01 21:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The only thing that is given any credence in the main body of the article that I have not seen in an academic source is the claim of Charun having boar tusks, which aside from the Monster in My Pocket figure, seem unique to Rovin's interpretation. If this is the case, then it should be taken out of the main description and placed later in the article. The word "tusk" does not appear in any of my sources at this point save for Rovin. I would need to check de Ruyt, Iulius Athanasius Ambrosch, Salvatore Rossi, and Otto Waser before I would endorse its removal, and of course, none of these are in English. I'm having enough trouble finding de Ruyt, in a language I can read, and Ambrosch and Rossi wrote in Italian, of which I only know what I've picked up from opera (I do some opera singing from time to time) and Italian cinema, and Waser wrote in German, which I know even less. These are the four sources Terpening uses to support his statement "The depiction of the Etruscan Charun, who is rarely seen as a boatman, has also been thoroughly studied" (p. 17). That said, I don't think Rovin and Turner belong in a category of "dubious" sources either, though a separation between popular and scholarly may be in order. --Scottandrewhutchins 22:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

"I have not seen in an academic source is the claim of Charun having boar tusks, which aside from the Monster in My Pocket figure, seem unique to Rovin's interpretation."

Sigh... Let's repeat one more time: Jeff Rovin is a sci-fi author.

Rovin has based his career purely on fiction writing and then wrote a book called "Encyclopedia of Monsters". You took it as the Holy Bible of mythology, not realizing that Rovin, being a sci-fi author, is very unlikely to pop out an academic resource that university students are going to use. Do accredited universities respect Jeff Rovin or other sci-fi writers as scholars? No, never. Most people can understand this but you're really trying to make a complex issue out of this.--Glengordon01 01:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Sentence 1 is false. Sentence 2 is an outright lie. Sentence 3 assumes that a person who writes science fiction is forever tainted from writing non-fiction, which is nonsense. and as for tusks, Charun doe sindeed have tusks in some representations. This is shown in Emeline Hill Richardson's The Etruscans: Their Art and Civilization published by University of Chicago Press. The tusks don't look like the MIMP figure--they're much smaller and grow form the lower jaw. This is in a relief on an urn from Chius, which is her plate XLV. On page 164 she describes Charun as having "great tusks" and on page 242-3, "horrid tusks". --Scottandrewhutchins 02:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As for the popular/scholarly division, yes, I agree which is what you see on the French Wikipedia right now.--Glengordon01 01:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Misquote about Laris Pulena's sarcophagus?

Something is taken out of context here again:

"One relief in particular, in the 'Tomb of the Charuns' as Tarquinia, shows two Charuns swinging their hammers at a person's head, though the head, probably that of Laris Pulenas, the nobleman whose tomb it is, no longer survives in the relief due to a preservation mistake. There are two additional Charuns in the picture, and each have sub-names. These are Charun Chunchules, the heavily blistered Charun Huths, Charun Lufe, and the fourth has crumbled away to illegibility."
  • 1. Laris Pulena, not "Pulenas". (Pulenas means "of Pulena" in Etruscan. That's how the Etruscan animate genitive case works, which is marked with the suffix -s.)
  • 2. Don't confuse sarcophagus reliefs with murals. There are only two Charun on the relief since the other two winged figures are irrefutably double images of Vanth. Larissa Bonfante explains this very relief *in full*, right down to the rocks and that figure laying next to Vanth on the right, so I suggest you read it.
  • 3. Huths just means "of four"... Charun Huths => "Charun of the Four"? Don't think so. They all are "of the four" in that case! Maybe you're paraphrasing again, kinda like the crater/krater mistake you wrote before.

--Glengordon01 02:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

The fact that you call her by her first name suggests a strong personal (as if she's your friend) bias.

Again I defer to de Grummond, whom you are attacking as well:

"Furthermore Charu may be plural, as is demonstrated vividly in the tomb at Tarquinia known in Italian as the Tomba dei Caronti, the “Tomb of the Charuns.” Here there are two doors to the Underworld (Figs. X.11-X.12), each flanked by a pair of the demons. All are labeled as Charun, with three of the four having a byname preserved in whole or in part. (The fourth one probably also had such a name, but the fresco is damaged in the area of the inscription.) Thus we have Charun Chunchules and Charun Huths (Fig. X.11, from left to right) as well as, perhaps, Charun Lufe (Fig. X.12, on the left); little is understood about their names, though Charun Huths may mean Charun Number Six (reinforcing the interpretation of the deity as a plurality), and it is also evident that the name Charun or Charu here has a generic quality, rather like the name Lasa.


These demons are well armed to protect their doors, with hammers in the one case (Fig. X.11) and in the other with axe and also sword and hammer (Fig. X.12). They are nasty fellows with serpents in their hair, and the skin is quite revolting, bluish or greenish, with one demon, Charun Huths (Fig. X.11), having blisters or sores all over the skin. All are sporting wings.


Indeed the hammer is the weapon of choice for Charu, and though most of the time he merely holds it in a menacing way, occasionally he is shown demonstrating its purpose. In a relief on the sarcophagus of the Tarquinia nobleman named Laris Pulenas, a pair of Charus swing their hammers toward the head of the central figure (Fig. X.13), probably the soul of the deceased. (Unfortunately due to the accidents of preservation, the figure is actually missing its head.) A similar usage of the hammer was maintained down into the period of the Roman Empire, when, in the gladiatorial games, a demonic character using the name of Dispater (Father Underworld) would go out into the arena and finish off the contest between two fighters. The loser, groveling in the sand, was pounded with a hammer by Dispater to make sure that he was dead.


The hammer is not always used against the soul, though, but even may be used to help it out. On the Orvieto amphora (Fig. X.5), Charu swings the hammer towards serpents that threaten the path of the deceased. At other times, the weapon is simply set upright on the ground as a staff for the spirit to lean upon (Fig. X.), as he greets or lounges about chatting with souls. On a red-figure vase from Vulci (Fig. X.14), he converses with a group of wounded, bandaged female souls, evidently Amazons (one of whom is called Hinthia(l) Aturmucas, i.e., Soul of Aturmuca, probably =Andromache, a common Amazon name), supporting himself upon the head of the upended mallet."

(pp 227-228)

--Scottandrewhutchins 23:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Personal bias? Okiedokie, I love your Hollywood interpretations of things.--Glengordon01 23:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

On your less emotional arguements now...

Factoid #1: Larissa Bonfante is showing a different point of view than de Grummond as you present it concerning Charun. Both are authorities in the subject, not just de Grummond. Get familiar with other books and don't edit further until you're willing to be less POV.

Factoid #2: You've clearly misread de Grummond's book by your very quote. "Charun's names" are **not** found on the sarcophagus relief of Laris Pulena so your wording on the article is misleading and false. If you took just one day to reflect on what you were reading, there wouldn't be so many POV problems and inaccuracies with this article.

Factoid #3: "Little is understood about their names, though"... means de Grummond can't understand what they mean and hence is not even sure that they are names. This is ergo interpretation (ie. "opinion") not fact. Get used to that too because it's one of WP's credos to separate opinion from fact, otherwise you're in violation.

Factoid #4: "Charun Huths may mean Charun Number Six"... means that she's not commiting to a single number. Which one is it? First "two", then "four", then "six". I'm familiar enough with sequential patterns to suspect that she'll be publishing "eight" in her next book. This is not just her confusion but the typical self-contradictions present in many books on Etruscan that are not thought-out enough... but hey, you gotta fill the book up with something or else it's a brochure, right? People don't want brochures; they want books. So in goes 10% fact and 90% supposition.

Factoid #5: Some experts consider huth to mean "four". So again, I can't help it if you haven't read enough of a selection of books beyond de Grummond and Jeff Rovin to know this. Again I plead with you to also read Massimo Pallottino and Larissa Bonfante, and stop being POV.

Despite your desire to paint a Hollywood picture of reality, I severely doubt that de Grummond can ever be "on your side" after the ways that you've misread and misrepresented her and other expert's materials so far, all the while attacking my input. An author in her position would want to be as distant from your childish barbs and misunderstandings as possible. Reading and skimming aren't the same thing. Put it another way: Output (editing) without input (reading) makes one very cut off from one's universe, and how healthy is that? --Glengordon01 00:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

It's funny you project a Hollywood mindset on me just because I was a film student. In school, I was regarded somewhat exaggeratedly as being an anti-Hollywood extremist and accused of writing "European Art Cinema" in screenwriting class, basically because I refuse to write a high concept script without at least a stipend, since I'd be bored out of my mind. --Scottandrewhutchins 04:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Inaccuracies in first paragraph

  • "In Etruscan mythology, Charun, also spelled Charu on Etruscan artifacts (with "Charun" appearing roughly as often)"

Probably unnecessary to write "appearing roughly as often". The word is written Charun or Charu. The end.

  • "[...] and sometimes spelled Charontes or Caronte in texts from other cultures"

Um? Are you trying to refer to the modern Greek Charontes? Is that what you mean by "other cultures"?

  • "His name may have been inspired by Charon from Greek mythology,"

May have been "inspired"?! Ugh, no. It is 99.999999% certain it was loaned from Greek Χαρων. --Glengordon01 02:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Every source I have is tentative about drawing a connection between Charon and Charun. By the way, I've aquired a few more sources. Aldo Massa's The World of the Etruscans, Graeme Barker and Tom Rasmussen's The Etruscans, Nigel Spivey's Etruscan Art, and Emeline Hill Richardson's The Etruscans: Their Art and Civilization. None of them agree with Bonafante. Barker and Rasmussen invoke Pallottino to claim that Charun is derived from Eurynomos. These are books I grabbed off the shelf in NYPL's main history room. They didn't have any Pallotino there. I'll update my findings later. By the way, Richardson also refers to "Laris Pulenas" rather than "Laris Pulena". You're harassing academics as much as you are harassing me. --Scottandrewhutchins 02:14, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Why aren't you capable of quoting Pallottino, Bonfante or other Etruscanologists as references instead of bargain bins at bookstores? --Glengordon01 05:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I can't quote them until I have access to them. These are the sources on the shelf in the main history room of the New York Public Library. They have Bonafante's Etruscan Life and Afterlide in the system, and I have placed a hold on it. I just looked in the system for Pallotino's books. They're shelved elsewhere, so I'll look at them next time I go. --Scottandrewhutchins 14:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As usual you know nothing about the subject. All any functional person has to do is click this link to Charon_(mythology). What does it say? ***READ IT, FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!!****:

"In Greek mythology, Charon ***(Greek Χάρων, fierce brightness)*** was the ferryman of Hades."

Anyone who has a grasp of this sentence understands that Charon is a Greek name with a Greek meaning. The end. --Glengordon01 05:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, some more points that make it crystal clear that Charun is a Greek name:

  • Etruscan -n appears optional, whereas it is always present in Greek.
  • The second vowel in Greek is a long vowel (omega, not omikron).
  • Etruscan has no long vowels, nor the vowel "o".
  • This leaves the Etruscan language with only one option to approximating a foreign omega: "u".
  • If it were Etruscan to Greek instead, there'd be no sensible explanation for "u" being pronounced as a long "o".
  • And the idea that "Charun" and "Charon" are accidental similarities is laughable.

So there is no shadow of doubt possible that the Etruscan name is Greek. However, don't be confused between the debate about the origin of the name (absolutely certain to be Greek) versus the origin of the god and his functions (a more complex subject that is under debate).--Glengordon01 06:03, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Virtually every book I have found has some uncertainty about this issue, whether you do or not. Is the u long or short?

Pallottino's The Etruscans is useless for the purpose of this page. It makes only one mention of Charun on page 149, and all he has to say is that Charun is a "demon" who is "a monstrous deformation of the Greek Charon, whose name he assumes". I'd be happy to include material from Pallottino on this page, but he doesn't say anything substantial of any releance to it in this book. There may be others in which he does. --Scottandrewhutchins 04:39, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

How many times are you going to say clichés like "Everyone I know..." or "Virtually every book I read...", etc. Thinkey people see through that.

Most authors have no linguistic background to understand the Etruscan language which is a pity because the language is half of the culture.

When I say "long vowel" in this context, I'm speaking about the duration of the vowel, not so-called "English long vowels" because "English long vowels" refer to the quality of the vowel, not the duration. For example, English's "long a" as in "gate" is technically a diphthong, not a "long vowel" in the way linguists use the term. A true long vowel is simply a vowel pronounced about twice the amount of time as the short version of the vowel. A modern language that has true long vowels would be something like Japanese where there is an important difference in meaning between ojisan and ojiisan.

You asked, "Is the u long or short?" I already stated above that Etruscan has **no** long vowels at all. So obviously it's relatively "short" in the absence of long vowels. This is provable by the fact that Greek loanwords with both omikron (short "o") and omega (long "o") are **both** reflected as "u" in Etruscan:

Looky, looky. Both omikron and omega both become "u" in the same word. Get it now?

There are a few examples in Etruscan that the average person might mistake to be examples of distinctive length contrasts but that a linguist would not be fooled by, such as thii "with the water" versus thi "water". Here, the double "ii" isn't a true long vowel because "thii" is two syllables, not one (ie. composed of thi "water" and -i, the locative case suffix). Another optical illusion is cliniiaras "of the sons" where the second "i" is actually serving to write "y" (ie. *cliniyaras), a semivocalic glide.

So when you say silly things like "Virtually every book I have found has some uncertainty about this issue, whether you do or not" it's pretty clear that you don't question anything you read. That naive attitude hampers learning because eventually you're going to come across two authors who contradict each other. So quite obviously no one should care at all whether there is "virtually every book" out there that says the same thing if the "same thing" is logically false and proven so by known facts. --Glengordon01 05:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Basically, what I wanted to know is the proper pronuncioation. I've heard half a dozen pronunciations of Charon, and almost never hear it pronounced "Car-own", which is the way my friend who speaks Attic Greek (whom I'm sure you'd dismiss because she collects MIMP and worships Anubis; her master's is in Egyptology) says it's pronounced. I learned the pronunciation "Karen" in school, have heard the moon called "Sharon" and heard a classics scholar say "Char-in" in a lecture at Butler University Latin Day. With all these varying pronunciations, I've been needlessly confused on how to pronounce "Charun", though my best guess is "Car-uhn" rather than "Char-ōōn", --Scottandrewhutchins 14:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, your Attic-speaking friend is not an Etruscan expert and astronomy has little to do with cultural history.

All you had to do was read "Etruscan language" or The Etruscan Language: An Introduction by Giuliano Bonfante and Larissa Bonfante (1983).

The Etruscan pronunciation would have been /'kharun/. Khi is an "aspirated velar stop". That's LinguistSpeak for "c" as in "cat". The English pronunciation we use however is bound to be a bastardized version of it depending on whether people want to be true to history (hence pronouncing "ch" as "k") or whether they want to give it a pretentious Parisian accent (hence "sh").

Many other words have been hopelessly bastardized into English including:

  • Beijing as "Bay-zhing" (Chinese speakers themselves say /bɛjdʒiŋ/ as written, so why the Parisian accent?)
  • Vice versa as "vaees-vur-sa" (Latin speakers themselves pronounced it /wike wersa:/)
  • Ensemble as "awn-sawm-bull" (French say /aⁿsaⁿblə/)
  • Pharaoh as "fay-row" (Ancient Egyptians would have pronounced it more like /pʰa:rʕoʔ/)

--Glengordon01 22:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Your phrase "I've heard half a dozen pronunciations of Charon, and almost **never hear** it pronounced "Car-own", **which is the way** my friend who speaks Attic Greek [...]" wasn't clear because when you say "never hear it pronounced 'Car-own'" and then write "which is the way my friend [...] says it's pronounced" makes it seem like you're saying that your Attic-speaking friend is insisting that it be pronounced in the the way that you do hear it (ie: like "Shar-own"). Having misread it, I was naturally floored, but I see my error now.

Anyways, long story short "ch" is properly pronounced "k" historically; other pronunciations are derivatives of English spelling and swanky Parisian accents ;) --Glengordon01 22:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

How about the last syllable? Just a schwa for Charun or is it like Charon ("Car-own")? What is the difference in sound between a kappa and a chi? It seems like it would be very slight. --Scottandrewhutchins 06:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

What is known about Etruscan is that the accent is always on the first syllable and that it probably had a strong stress accent. This explains why syncope affected non-initial syllables over time (eg: vacil -> vacl). So while the vowel may have started out as /u/, it would have eroded over time, possibly towards a simple rounded or unrounded schwa, yes. But there are always other possibilities like /ʊ/ or /ɔ/. The last thing a non-initial syllable could have is a long vowel in a language like this because it would be the initial syllable that would tend to be automatically longer on the phonetic level.

As for the difference between kappa and khi, the difference is "slight" only from an English-speaker perspective. We English speakers probably have a tough time hearing the difference since our "k"-sounds are sometimes more like kappas and sometimes more like khis. The "k" in "skim" is unaspirated like a Greek kappa but the "k" in "kooky" is aspirated as in the Greek khi.

Back to Etruscan, if we could hear a native speak it, an English speaker would probably misunderstand ch as "k" and c as "g". To a Classical Greek who was primed from birth to recognize the subtle differences between /kʰ/, /k/ and /g/ however, the difference would not have been as difficult to pick out. Of course, there's always a possibility that the Etruscan aspiration was more forceful (ie. velar aspiration) so that ch could have been /kx/ (ie. pronounced with a bucket of phlegm). --Glengordon01 22:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Boots

I found where I got the boots reference, this was in Nigel Spivey's Etruscan Art, though it was Charun, not the souls, wearing boots. You have to remember that I started this page as as stub to be amended later. With you adding nonsense and OR, it became sooner. --Scottandrewhutchins

Larissa Bonfante is in no shape or form "nonsense" for those that know the subject. --Glengordon01 23:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You've never used Bonafante as a source in the article (at least not in English), only an assumption you drew from Beekes which Beekes said nothing about. --Scottandrewhutchins 14:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sigh. Bonfante, not Bonafante. Read. --Glengordon01 05:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Archive?

Would anyone object to archiving the old discussion (before and during page protection)? Durova 15:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

At 152 kilobytes, with little sectioning to make navigation easier, and mostly about one topic, I think it's a good idea. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Archive completed. Note to editors: standard talk page procedure consists of creating new sections and subsections when necessary, not creating horizontal lines between each poster's comments. Durova 16:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

If Wikipedia had a clearer interface and design format, then these lines wouldn't be necessary. Instead, no one tries to improve it. So without lines, space separation between users' comments makes things hard to read, particularly when some people write one paragraph and others may right two, etc. Lines make the distinction between one person's paragraphs and the next clear until Wikipedia can update it's interface with something more "post-1996" like all other message systems have. --Glengordon01 01:15, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Charun's attributes

Let's talk about these things (and this time, Scott, do not put your comments INTO mine, please)...

  • a vulture's hooked-nose

I want someone to *cite* which artifact demonstrates this, not just authors but first-hand artifacts. Tuchulcha has a beak but he is a separate deity from Charun.

  • heavy brow ridges
  • large lips

Exaggerations. Cite clear artifact sources or reword.

  • pointed ears like an ass

"Pointed ears" is valid; "like an ass" is Christian bias. The Devil in Europe has a long history of being altered by extra zoomorphic details derived from non-Christian religious substrate, whether it be Celtic, Etruscan, Greek or Roman. Surely no one would claim that Geoffrey Chaucer's Summoner's Prologue is based on Etruscan mythology when he says all the way back in the **14th century** and nestled in **England** far from Etruria:

"And now has Sathanas," said he, "a tail
Broader than of a galleon is the sail.
Hold up thy tail, thou Sathanas!" said he
"Show forth thine arse and let the friar see"

So claiming that Michelangelo et al. were similarly influenced specifically by Etruscans is equally weak. Pinning everything to Etruscan influence is a veritable fool's gold for daydreaming authors. --Glengordon01 05:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually I want you to also cite the specific artifacts showing Charun to have:

  • tusk boars

--Glengordon01 05:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

You state in the history comments: "RV: Richardson shows photographs plenty of artifacts from long before the Renaissance with these elements in her book"

No, this is not good enough. I want *each* of these claims to be verified by at least one artifact, not just glossed over and blamed on either your whim or a random author you cite. Cite the artifacts themselves. Primary, not second-hand sources please. --Glengordon01 05:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Her plate XLVb shows an ash urn from Chius that on one end has a Winged Charun with large tusks jutting out of his lower jaw. Charun here is also depicted in hunting boots.

This image [3] Shows a snake on Charun's arm. It's dated at 2 B.C.

Barker and Rasmussen state that he has ears "ass's ears" and compares them to Tuchulcha's. I didn't write down the page number, but I think it was 242. On 246, they call Phersu a sort of proto-Charun.

"Big lips" is on Terepning's page 15.

"Vulture's nose" is in several sources I've probably attributed on the apge that are not in front of me. Terpening just says a "long hooked nose".

What other aspects of Charun's appearance do you say are unique to Renaissance representations/reinterpretations?--Scottandrewhutchins 06:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

"This image [4] Shows a snake on Charun's arm. It's dated at 2 B.C."

Thank you, now prove that it's Charun and not Tuchulcha. Otherwise you need to change the wording.

"Barker and Rasmussen state that he has ears "ass's ears" and compares them to Tuchulcha's."

But the choice of "ass" is still based on one author's feeling, not facts, so rewording is in order to reflect this.

"I didn't write down the page number, but I think it was 242. On 246, they call Phersu a sort of proto-Charun."

You're speaking about The Tomb of the Augurs, the picture of a character labelled as Φersu (translation "Persian"; note Akkadian Parsu, Greek Persēs), which is the only thing that explains his long black beard and distinctively Persian attire. It is certainly not Etruscan dress.

If you will read Achaemenid Empire, you will see that the empire had engulfed Turkey and Eastern Greece at precisely the time of these tomb paintings (c. 530/520 BCE). Surely the Greek colonies at Magna Graecia would be affected by these events, don't you think? It has nothing to do with Charon but I can't stop inattentive people from publishing books nor can I stop anyone from mistaking them as unchallengeable gospel. --Glengordon01 07:36, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

de Grummond states that the other picture is the only known picture of Tuchulcha. So does another of the authors I've mentioned here. I don't have the books with me, so I'd have to go to the library again and look up whom. The website I got the image from says that it's Charun. --Scottandrewhutchins 16:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Charun's attributes (Christian fundamentalist bias)

When one googles "ears of an ass" online we end up with what any sensible person would expect: a big long list of Christian-related links to Satan, not to Charun. Since many authors who casually write about Etruscan history have nothing on which to base their hasty comparisons of Charun to donkeys, aside from Etruscan artifacts themselves which merely show generic zoomorphism, one shouldn't have to fear crucifixion lest one suggest that Etruscan history is being hopelessly warped by continuing fundamentalist bias in the 21st century. Dare I say, the historical revisionism is even abetted by the growing mass hysteria of relativism which seeks to prop up two equally opposing views as somehow "logically equal" as if to say that falsehood is just another form of logical truth.

"The ass as a symbol of heresy, or of Satan, is represented in a fresco of the catacomb of Prætextatus: Christ, the Good Shepherd, is protecting His flock from impurity and heresy symbolized as a pig and an ass. This representation dates from the beginning of the third century (Wilpert, Pitture delle Catacombe, Pl. 51, 1)." -- Catholic Encyclopedia

Undeniably, the Renaissance was a time when Christianity was center stage and the Etruscans were a distant memory. By this time, so many "pagan" influences from various cultures other than Etruscans, from all around Europe (Celtic, Roman, Scandinavian, Greek) and the Near-East (Zoroastrianism), had been successfully fused into the Christian melting pot. We can hardly dissect something "specifically Etruscan" from Michelangelo's paintings any more than we can extract a quark from a proton. So when an author states overconfidently "Charun has pointed ears... like that of an ass", a devout scholar will recognize that this is just artistic licence and that the author can have in no way proved his assertion based on such a fleeting sentence as this.

So, yes, the Renaissance (the portal though which Etruscans are being muddled with modern Christian folklore by low-grade authors) appears to be that upon which the "ears of an ass" description of Charun is grounded, not actual Etruscan artifacts or writings of that time period. For reasons of author bias and for scant information on Etruscans, references to Etruscan culture, religion and language have to be taken with an extra grain of salt. --Glengordon01 07:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Tuchulcha, a female deity with a beard?

Whatever:

  • Tuchulcha is a "he".
  • He has a *BEARD* to prove it.
  • Larissa Bonfante refers to Tuchulcha *ONLY* as *HE* (-> Read her book Etruscan Myths)
  • She mentions *NOTHING* about *ANY* cockamamey theory about Tuchulcha having "breasts" because that nonsense is *DISPROVEN* by the very artifacts which *ONLY* show a deity with a *BEARD*.

So think what you want. It's hopeless with you. --Glengordon01 05:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

In other words, your sources are the only correct ones. No Etruscanologist know better than the Bonfantes. Sorry, no fields are that free of reputable argument. More than one scholarly book has said that Tuchulcha is female, so a site like this cannot ignore the theory. Many scholars see the facial hair of a beast, not a "beard", so stop trying to claim that you have "disproven" anything. Thus, you are arguing against WP:NPOV. --Scottandrewhutchins 22:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Yes, it's proven that Tuchulcha has a beard by concrete evidence and citations -> Mural from the Tomb of Orcus
  • Ergo, yes, Bonfante's use of "he" to describe Tuchulcha is cited and on better ground than new age delusions.
  • In your infinite knowledge, Scott, what "beast" is capable of a full black beard other than a human male?

--Glengordon01 03:15, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

If it were proven, there would not be a disagreement among reputable Etruscanologists, and yet there is. --Scottandrewhutchins 17:13, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Ridiculous. De Grummond and who else that is notable as an academic **in this field**? No one. I see nothing so far from Pallottino, nor Bonfante claiming that Tuchulcha is a woman. You're trying very hard to be non-WP:NPOV and then having the audacity to claim otherwise. --Glengordon01 22:58, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, Scott, if you were at all reasonable, you would have answered my simple question posed earlier:

  • In your infinite knowledge, Scott, what "beast" is capable of a full black beard other than a human male?

You can't make outlandish claims through others and then just say "Oh, so-and-so published it. It's not my fault." Be accountable for your citations and reason, and if you can't, don't post them. Answer the question! --Glengordon01 23:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

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