I believe the coin in the skull is a fairly recent (in the past decade) South African 5 Rand coin and bimetallic at that. But turned sideways and corroded, it does have a medieval look, doesn’t it? I have to wonder how early is the story about paying the ancient Greek ferryman Charon, as coins didn’t exist in the West as such until circa 650 BCE or very slightly before..
Propnomicon, you have to pay cash up front – you won’t “Getaway” with that because you’ll get a dunking in the Styx. Remember to have an obol because he don’t make change.
@ Anonymous -- Adrienne Mayor’s groundbreaking book The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times was a radical new idea back in 2000, but its gained wider acceptance over the years. It’s certainly a rational and logical look at Greek myths and how the ancients dealt with fitting in otherwise inexplicable remains into a prescientific culture. Had archeologists not viewed these remains, found in situ at digs, as simply eccentrics and discarded them as anomalous contamination, the idea might have been expounded many years earlier. I understand there’s a newer edition out.
The ancients were not completely dense, they knew fossils meant something and worked to fit them into their view of the world via their brand of natural philosophy. From a prop making and RPG scenario standpoint, this is fertile ground.
Is the coin a Drachma by any chance?
ReplyDelete@ bea
ReplyDeleteDon't pay the ferryman,
Don't even fix a price,
Don't pay the ferryman,
Until he gets you to the other side.
God, I'm old. Heh.
I believe the coin in the skull is a fairly recent (in the past decade) South African 5 Rand coin and bimetallic at that. But turned sideways and corroded, it does have a medieval look, doesn’t it? I have to wonder how early is the story about paying the ancient Greek ferryman Charon, as coins didn’t exist in the West as such until circa 650 BCE or very slightly before..
ReplyDeletePropnomicon, you have to pay cash up front – you won’t “Getaway” with that because you’ll get a dunking in the Styx. Remember to have an obol because he don’t make change.
The real skulls of "cyclopses" are probably actually elephant skulls found on Krete and Cyprus.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0205_030205_cyclops.html
@ Anonymous -- Adrienne Mayor’s groundbreaking book The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times was a radical new idea back in 2000, but its gained wider acceptance over the years. It’s certainly a rational and logical look at Greek myths and how the ancients dealt with fitting in otherwise inexplicable remains into a prescientific culture. Had archeologists not viewed these remains, found in situ at digs, as simply eccentrics and discarded them as anomalous contamination, the idea might have been expounded many years earlier. I understand there’s a newer edition out.
ReplyDeleteThe ancients were not completely dense, they knew fossils meant something and worked to fit them into their view of the world via their brand of natural philosophy. From a prop making and RPG scenario standpoint, this is fertile ground.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/ancient.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_paleontology
http://www.iep.utm.edu/xenoph/
http://www.academia.edu/285202/Ancient_References_to_the_Fossils_From_the_Land_of_Pythagoras