Talk:Charun

Trojans in Italy?

I thought that was a Roman myth (popularised in the Aeneid) T@nn 16:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We're gonna fix that, as per my reasons on Talk:Etruscan_mythology#Trojans_into_Italy.3F. --Glengordon01 09:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To add to the lie about the origin of Charun, there are a few trolls that have a penchant for adding nonsense totally unrelated to this god, except by way of name alone. Sadly, this is an example of why the Wikipedia is doomed to be mediochre: Obscure subjects are maintained by a meager handful, while crackpots and trolls outnumber and overwhelm their efforts completely. --Glengordon01 09:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Charun's hammer

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)[reply]

Scottandrewhutchins, please stop entering nonsense into the article. You claim that your source is the Aeneid (dated to the 1st c. BCE when Etruscan language/culture was on the wane) but unless you can provide a specific quote from it saying "Charun bashed souls", your baseless assertions have got to stop. --Glengordon01 23:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scottandrewhutchins, again with the crap. Why? You keep quoting sci-fi writers like Jeff Rovin and trash like "Encyclopedia of Monsters" or nobodies like Ronnie H. Terpeling. Since when does a scholar label Charun as a "monster"? Is Cookie Monster and Frankstein listed in the same book? If so, that's a clue that your sources are hog manure. Please, grow up. (Or if you're under 12, perhaps you should consider asking your parents to help you.)

Robert S. P. Beekes is without a doubt a recognized scholar on a much higher level than "Encyclopedia of Monsters". He elaborates on the Etruscan labrys and its origins in The Origins of the Etruscans (pdf) (p.31-32). The Romans used the same symbolism called a bipennis. It's absolutely clear except to the purposely ignorant that Charun is holding a labrys here. People don't use double-headed hammers unless they're gonna hit themselves on the head along with the nail ;) The labrys isn't for anything other than ritual and religious iconography, not "bashing souls". So don't act like a fool and whine about "being insulted" when your knowledge of this subject is so clearly lacking.

As far as I'm concerned, you have nothing important to say on this. Just learn and move on. --Glengordon01 23:42, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some extra information for those who love facts... Other classical gods wield the labrys just as Charun does, such as Roman Jupiter Dolichenus, Greek Zeus Labraundos and Anatolian Teshub. The pattern then is evident. Those comparisons would be a lot more useful to this article than shoddy quotes from "Encyclopedia of Monsters", no? --Glengordon01 00:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boots and horses for the dead?

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)[reply]

Jeff Rovin's The Fantasy Encyclopedia and Encyclopaedia of Monsters[1] are your sources? Apparently you don't seem to notice that Jeff Rovin's specialty is "fantasy", not "historical accuracy". That would explain his other books like Encyclopaedia of Superheroes and the rest.

So I'm pretty sure that accredited universities don't consider Jeff Rovin an authoritative expert on Etruscan mythology. Maybe it's the colourful illustrations on the cover that tip us off that this is a book designed for gradeschoolers, not adults.

So I'm gonna take this out and classify it as nonsense. --Glengordon01 16:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scottandrewhutchins, please stop your vandalism

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)[reply]

None of your quotations have anything specifically to do with Charun. The link to "Underworld" was not a vandalism, it was what the article started with (and your link to Aita shows it as no different from Hades), so stop your baseless accusations of vandalism and allow for balance in the article. Excluding material from Terpening and including only Beekes would be lacking neutrality.

There was no article for Charun before I got here. Typing "Charun" got you Charon with a brief note claiming that "Charun" is Charon's Etruscan name. This I altrered and corrected. As per WIkipedia policy, GOOD-FAITH EDITS ARE NOT VANDALISM.

And I searched your PDF for mentyion of "Charun" and got no hits. A book that mentions Charun is a more valid source for this page than a book that does not.

Scottandrewhutchins 17:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedia of Monsters is not a real book. It's toilet paper. Wrapping toilet paper around Wikipedia is still vandalism, even if you might find it amusing. --Glengordon01 05:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt you've ever even read it, and even if you have, you still fail to understand what constitutes vandalism on Wikipedia. Nobody gives a crap about your research on the "bipennis" if you can't actually document it had anything to do with Charun. Scottandrewhutchins 11:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You caught me. Yes, it's true I don't read children's books about monsters. --Glengordon01 02:02, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's illogical to insist that a book that makes no reference whatsoever to Charun should be the sole source of a Charun page. I don't know of any library that places the book in question in the juvenile section. Scottandrewhutchins 05:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, so you have been browsing the juvenile section. Indeed :)

No, my statement was just the opposite. You interpret stragely and illogically, just like demanding that a book that never mentions Charun should be the sole source of the Charun page. Scottandrewhutchins 14:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Charun/Vanth versus Nergal/Ereshkigal

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)[reply]

More Jeff Rovin propoganda

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)[reply]

Okay, well now we're getting somewhere. So basically, you're admitting that this is Rovin's unique, non-specialist perspective of things. Then it has to be explicitly stated that this is the case. But if you're saying that "Rovin sucks at bibliography" then that makes any defense of Rovin's opinions most dubious. --Glengordon01 01:11, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And your defense of Beeks as a source is dubious when he says nothing about Charun. I'm sure he is an expert on Etruscan culture, but if he doesn't say anything about the figure in question, one MUST draw from another source. Scottandrewhutchins 22:59, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Never a sci-fi source. --Glengordon01 08:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a sci-fi source, so stop saying that it is. Scottandrewhutchins 11:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Encyclopedia of Monsters" is "a fascinating suspense thriller" then. You're clearly not in your right mind. --Glengordon01 18:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reference book, not a work of fiction. You must be Beekes's student assistant. You're clearly obsessed with someone who says nothing about the figure in question.Scottandrewhutchins 19:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as Rovin and bibliographies go, he cites a source for each entry, but as mythhological figures go, he just says, "Etruscan mythology" and gives rough dates or some such. Scottandrewhutchins 15:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

French page

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)[reply]

Italian page

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