Beyod Charon's Obol: Coin and Coin-Like DEpositions in Funerary Assemblages at Parion From the Classical to the Roman Perios

Tuğrul S., Keleş V.

MATERIALY PO ARHEOLOGII I ISTORII ANTIČNOGO I SREDNEVEKOVOGO PRIČERNOMORʹÂ = PROCEEDINGS IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY OF ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL BLACK SEA REGION, sa.22, ss.409-439, 2026 (Scopus)

Özet


 BEYOND CHARON’S OBOL: COIN AND COIN-LIKE DEPOSITIONS

IN FUNERARY ASSEMBLAGES AT PARION

FROM THE CLASSICAL TO THE ROMAN PERIOD*

This article examines funerary monetary deposition in 75 documented contexts from the South/Tavşandere Necropolis of Parion, dated from the Late Classical/Early Hellenistic to the Roman Imperial period. The dataset is analysed at context level and distinguishes ordinary struck coins, coin-like objects, and modified monetary deposits, while keeping coin issue date separate from grave/context date. The evidence is dominated by in-mouth bronze coins, but the corpus also includes multi-coin mouth and near-mouth deposits, indeterminate micro-locations, gold coin-impression foils, a dolphin-shaped cast object, and foil-gilded bronze coins. The study argues that Charon’s obol remains a useful interpretation only where object category, placement, burial mode, and archaeological association support it. Parion thus offers a well-documented corpus for examining how coins, coin images, and transformed monetary forms entered funerary practice.