Danake

File:Charon&Psychopomp.jpg receives a coin for the passage of a soul guided by Hermes (Mercury) as psychopomp.]]

{{Main|Charon's obol}}

The {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} is one of the coins that served as the so-called Charon's obol, which was placed on or in a dead person's mouth to pay the ferryman who conveyed souls across the river that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead.Albert R. Frey, A Dictionary of Numismatic Names (New York 1917), p. 60. Charon's obol is sometimes specifically called a naulum (Greek {{lang|grc|ναῦλον}}, "boat fare").Aristophanes, Frogs 270; Juvenal 8.97; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 6.18; Albert R. Frey, A Dictionary of Numismatic Names (New York 1917), p. 158. The Christian-era lexicographer Hesychius gives "the obol for the dead" as one of the meanings of {{lang|grc|δανάκη}},Hesychius, entry on {{lang|grc|δανάκη}}, Lexicon, edited by M. Schmidt (Jena 1858–68), I 549, as cited by Gregory Grabka, "Christian Viaticum: A Study of Its Cultural Background", Traditio 9 (1953) p. 8. and the Suda defines the {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} as a coin traditionally buried with the dead for paying the ferryman to cross the Acheron.Entry on {{lang|grc|δανάκη}}, Suidae Lexicon, edited by A. Adler (Leipzig 1931) II 5f., cited by Gregory Grabka, "Christian Viaticum", Traditio 9 (1953) p. 8. In literary sources, the smallness of the denomination was taken as a reminder that death is an equalizer of rich and poor.Susan T. Stevens, "Charon's Obol and Other Coins in Ancient Funerary Practice," Phoenix 45 (1991), pp. 217, 219–220.

Although Charon's obol is usually regarded as Hellenic, archaeology indicates that the rite of placing of a coin in the mouth of the deceased was practiced also during Parthian and even Sasanian times in the region that is present-day Iran. The coin, however, was customarily a drachma.A.D.H. Bivar, "Achaemenid Coins, Weights and Measures", in The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 2, pp. 622–623, with citations on the archaeological evidence in note 5. In his entry on the {{lang|grc|δανάκη}}, Hesychius implies that the coin was mentioned by Heracleides of Cyme in his lost work Persica around 350 BC, placing its use (perhaps erroneously) in the Achaemenid period.A.D.H. Bivar, "Achaemenid Coins, Weights and Measures", in The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge University Press, 1985), vol. 2, p. 622. Bivar calls it a "bookman's notion" that {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} was the correct name for the boat fare and blames a misunderstanding of a line in Callimachus.

Gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danakes}} are frequently found in graves. In a Thessalian burial of the 4th century BC, a gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} had been placed on the lips of a woman, presumed from her religious paraphernalia to be an initiate into the Orphic or Dionysiac mysteries. The coin was stamped with a Gorgon's head.K. Tasntsanoglou and George M. Parássoglou, "Two Gold Lamellae from Thessaly," Hellenica 38 (1987) 3–16. For more on this particular burial, see article Totenpass.

File:Geta coin.jpg of Geta, similar to the {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} found (as described at right) in the well of a Macedonian cemetery]]

In archaeological investigations of Greece since the mid-1990s, {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danakes}} have tended to be found in cemeteries. At a necropolis at Hephaisteia on Lemnos, exploration of which began in 1995, the many finds in unlooted graves included a gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}}.David Blackman, "Archaeology in Greece 2001–2002", Archaeological Reports 48 (2001–2002), p. 91. In the late 1990s, a cemetery in northwest Greece yielded objects dating from the mid-4th to the early 3rd centuries BC, including oinochoai, unguentaria, a wreath with thin gold leaves (sometimes associated with Orphic religion), a gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}}, and a silver obol with a winged Pegasus.David Blackman, "Archaeology in Greece 1999–2000", Archaeological Reports 46 (1999–2000), p. 67. A gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}}of Geta dating 199–200 A.D. was among objects – including potsherds, animal bones and shells, and bronze coins – retrieved from a well in the center of a cemetery in central Macedonia. The well was surrounded by a paved floor and housed by a stone structure. It is thought that the deposition followed funerary meals and offerings to the dead.David Blackman, Archaeological Reports 45 (1998–1999), p. 78, with photograph of coin fig. 93.

In investigations reported 2004–2005, a single gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}} was found along with bronze coins and glassware in an Achaian cemetery where both adults and children had been buried in wooden coffins.James Whitley, "Archaeology in Greece 2004–2005", Archaeological Reports 46 (2004–2005), p. 37. Graves in Euboia yielded pottery and glassware, small bone tools, iron strigils, and gold jewelry and {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danakes}}.James Whitley, "Archaeology in Greece 2004–2005", Archaeological Reports 46 (2004–2005), p. 49. In Epiros, graves and funerary chests yielded gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danakes}} along with kantharoi, lamps, pyxides, figurines, gold rings, gold oak leaves, iron strigils, a bone flute, fragments of funerary stelae and a marble head of a young man. The items dated from the 4th to the 2nd century BC. Excavations at a Hellenistic cemetery in the same area uncovered five gold {{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danakes}} along with seventeen perfume flasks,Typical vase shapes for holding perfume oils are the lekythos and alabastron; but see also "Unguentarium." twenty-six vessels, a bronze strigil, an iron spearhead, terracotta figurines and a funerary pelike with gorgoneia at the base of the handles.James Whitley, "Archaeology in Greece 2004–2005", Archaeological Reports 46 (2004–2005), p. 64.

The word "{{Transliteration|grc|italic=no|danake}}" continued in use into the Middle Ages as Arabic {{Transliteration|ar|daneq}}, Persian {{Translation|fas|dangh}} or {{Transliteration|fa|trmmdaneh}}, and post-classical Sanskrit {{Transliteration|sa|\tanka}}.Albert R. Frey, A Dictionary of Numismatic Names (New York 1917), p. 60. The name has been connected to the silver tangka of India, which had the same weight.A. Cunningham, "Relics from Ancient Persia in Gold, Silver, and Copper", Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 50 (1881), p. 168.

• Ancient Greek coinage

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Category:Coins of ancient Greece

Category:Death customs

Category:Achaemenid Empire