Charun
Encyclopedia
In Etruscan mythology
Etruscan mythology
The Etruscans were a diachronically continuous population, with a distinct language and culture during the period of earliest European writing, in the Mediterranean Iron Age in the second half of the first millennium BC...

, Charun (also spelled Charu, or Karun) acted as one of the psychopomp
Psychopomp
Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage...

oi of the underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...

, not to be confused with the lord of the underworld, known to the Etruscans as Aita
Aita (mythology)
In Etruscan mythology, Aita was the name for the underworld, as well as the corresponding anthropomorphized deity, borrowed from Greek Hades. Etruscans depicted him as a bearded male wearing a wolfskin cap....

. He is often portrayed with Vanth
Vanth
Vanth is a chthonic figure in Etruscan mythology shown in a variety of forms of funerary art, such as in tomb paintings and on sarcophagi. Vanth is a female demon in the Etruscan underworld that is often accompanied either by additional Vanth figures or by another demon, Charun . Both Vanth and...

, a winged goddess also associated with the underworld.

Origins

His name was imported from Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 Charon
Charon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...

, although it is uncertain whether Etruscans had a native name for a god of the underworld before this. As suggested by alternations in the Etruscan language
Etruscan language
The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization, in what is present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna...

 such as θu "one" changing to θunśna "first", lev "lion" (from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 leōn) and Apulu (from Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 Apóllōn), words ending in -n after u were disappearing from the language which is why we see his name spelled Хarun and later Хaru.

Appearance

The Etruscan Charun was fundamentally different from his Greek counterpart. Guarding the entry to the underworld he is depicted with a hammer
Hammer
A hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...

, his religious symbol, and is shown with pointed ears, snakes around his arms, and a blueish coloration symbolizing the decay of death. In some images he has enormous wings. He is also depicted as a large creature with snake
Snake
Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

-like hair, a vulture
Vulture
Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...

's hooked-nose
Human nose
The visible part of the human nose is the protruding part of the face that bears the nostrils. The shape of the nose is determined by the ethmoid bone and the nasal septum, which consists mostly of cartilage and which separates the nostrils...

, large tusks like a boar
Boar
Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...

, heavy brow ridges, large lip
Lip
Lips are a visible body part at the mouth of humans and many animals. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech...

s, fiery eyes, pointed ears
EARS
EARS may refer to:* Electoral software* Electronic Arts, Redwood Shores campus.* Emirates Amateur Radio Society...

 a black beard
Beard
A beard is the collection of hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and neck of human beings. Usually, only pubescent or adult males are able to grow beards. However, women with hirsutism may develop a beard...

, enormous wing
Wing
A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...

s, discolored (pale cream, bluish or greyish) skin
Skin
-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...

, and snakes around his arm.

Function

Larissa Bonfante
Giuliano Bonfante
Giuliano Bonfante was an Italian linguistics scholar and expert on the language of the Etruscans and other Italic peoples. He was professor of linguistics at the University of Turin.Bonfante was born in Milan...

 and Judith Swaddling have this to say about Charun: "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." However, there are at least two examples, on the sarcophagus of Laris Pulenas as well as a red figure stamnos from Orbetello, that do illustrate Charun in a menacing fashion. Each depicts Charun threatening a male figure with his hammer.

The grotesque nature of the depiction of Charun appears to have been at least partly apotropaic in nature. Apotropaic art was the practice of the neighboring Greeks at this time, as represented by the exaggerated eyes painted on drinking vessels in the 6th century BC to ward away spirits while drinking or the monstrous depiction of Medusa
Medusa
In Greek mythology Medusa , " guardian, protectress") was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster, and a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. The author Hyginus, interposes a generation and gives Medusa another chthonic pair as parents. Gazing directly upon her would turn onlookers to stone...

 whose image was said to turn men to stone. Through these images of the grotesque, violence and blood-letting, the Etruscans may have believed that they helped to fend off evil spirits from the tomb as well as sanctify the tomb perhaps in place of the actual ritual sacrifice of an animal usually performed in funerary rites.

Nancy de Grummond offers a different view. The relief on the sarcophagus of Laris Pulenas at Tarquinia
Tarquinia
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy.- History :Tarquinii is said to have been already a flourishing city when Demaratus of Corinth brought in Greek workmen...

, shows two Charuns swinging their hammers at a person's head, though the head (probably that of Pulenas, the nobleman whose sarcophagus it is) no longer survives in the relief due to an accident of preservation. Years later, in the Colosseum
Colosseum
The Colosseum, or the Coliseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre , is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, the largest ever built in the Roman Empire...

, a Charun-like figure called Dispater would hit the loser with a hammer to make sure he was dead, perhaps in reflection of Charun. The hammer might also be used to protect the dead; it is sometimes swung at serpents attacking the deceased (as shown on the Orvieto amphora). Most often it is simply held, or the handle planted on the ground and the mallet head leaned upon (above). De Grummond notes that the ferry of Charon appears only once in surviving Etruscan art, and that some Etruscan demons are equipped with oars, but they typically use them as weapons rather than in their maritime function.

Modern views

Many authors tend to take a more sensationalist view of Charun, speaking of him as a "death-demon". Such authors may be inspired by Christian views of Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...

 and moral punishment. For the Etruscans, as with the Greeks, Hades was merely a morally neutral place of the dead. Neither the "good" nor the "bad" could escape the clutches of death and both were assembled there together.

Ron Terpening
Ron Terpening
Ron Terpening is an American writer, professor of Italian, and editor. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy,...

, a professor of Italian literature at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

, cites Franz de Ruyt, who claims Charun is similar to Chaldean demons or the Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 divinities Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...

 and Kali
Kali
' , also known as ' , is the Hindu goddess associated with power, shakti. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Kali means "the black one". Since Shiva is called Kāla - the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" . Hence, Kāli is...

. He is presumed to be the servant of Mantus
Mantus
In Etruscan myth and religion, Mantus was a god of the underworld in the Po Valley, as described by Servius. A dedication to the god manθ from the Archaic period was found in a sanctuary at Pontecagnano...

 and Mania
Mania (mythology)
In Roman and Etruscan mythology, Mania was the goddess of the dead. She, along with Mantus, ruled the underworld. She was said to be the mother of ghosts, the undead, and other spirits of the night, as well as the Lares and the Manes...

, and, like Charon, is comparable to the Greeks' Thanatos
Thanatos
In Greek mythology, Thanatos was the daemon personification of death. He was a minor figure in Greek mythology, often referred to but rarely appearing in person...

, the Erinyes
Erinyes
In Greek mythology the Erinyes from Greek ἐρίνειν " pursue, persecute"--sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses" -- were female chthonic deities of vengeance. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath"...

, and the Keres
Keres (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Keres were female death-spirits. The Keres were daughters of Nyx, and as such the sisters of Fate , Doom , Death and Sleep , Strife , Old Age , Divine Retribution , Charon, and other personifications...

. The author, like de Grummond, feels that some later Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 paintings of Greek Charon
Charon (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from the world of the dead. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on...

 may show the continuity of pre-Christian Etruscan beliefs. Later on when the deity had evolved into the Greek Charontes, or Caronte in Italian, Terpening notes that Charun's hammer or mallet
Mallet
A mallet is a kind of hammer, usually of rubber,or sometimes wood smaller than a maul or beetle and usually with a relatively large head.-Tools:Tool mallets come in different types, the most common of which are:...

 is sometimes replaced with an oar
Oar
An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Oarsmen grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles are that paddles are held by the paddler, and are not connected with the vessel. Oars generally are connected to the vessel by...

, although it does not fit with his duties.

According to Jeff Rovin, Charun guided souls on horseback to the underworld and "brings horses to the newly-dead", but this is idle speculation. He also claims that Charun appears to love violence and participates in warfare adding that Charun enjoys natural disasters as well. An Etruscan krater
Krater
A krater was a large vase used to mix wine and water in Ancient Greece.-Form and function:...

 from François Tomb (above) depicts Charun with Ajax
Ajax (mythology)
Ajax or Aias was a mythological Greek hero, the son of Telamon and Periboea and king of Salamis. He plays an important role in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. To distinguish him from Ajax, son of Oileus , he is called "Telamonian Ajax," "Greater...

 or Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 (left, cropped out) slaughtering Trojan
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

 prisoners. This urn is currently held in Cabinet des Médailles
Cabinet des Médailles
The Cabinet des Médailles, more formally known as Département des Monnaies, Médailles et Antiques de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, is a department of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, France, housed in its former premises in Rue de Richelieu.The Cabinet des Médailles is a museum...

 920, Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris. Rovin says that some accounts depict him with a sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

, and that he "slices" souls with it. At least one image shows him guiding a soul on horseback, equipped with both a hammer and a sword, though he is simply carrying it on his person.

The Charon of Vergil in the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

is particularly cruel; according to W.F. Jackson Knight, "Vergil's Charon is not only the Greek ferryman of Aristophanes
Aristophanes
Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

 [in The Frogs
The Frogs
The Frogs is a comedy written by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed at the Lenaia, one of the Festivals of Dionysus, in 405 BC, and received first place.-Plot:...

], but more than half his Etruscan self, Charun, the Etruscan torturing death-devil, no ferryman at all."

Assistants

Charun is believed to have worked with many assistants in the Underworld, although they could be independent deities in their own right. Most of their names are lost to us, but at least one, Tuchulcha
Tuchulcha
In Etruscan mythology, Tulchulcha was a chthonic daemon with pointed ears , and hair made of snakes and a beak...

, is identified in the Tomb of Orcus II, and has hair and wings like a Gorgon
Gorgon
In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...

. Tuchulcha, whose gender is debated among scholars, appears in a depiction of the story of Theseus
Theseus
For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was the mythical founder-king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, both of whom Aethra had slept with in one night. Theseus was a founder-hero, like Perseus, Cadmus, or Heracles, all of whom battled and overcame foes that were...

 (known to the Etruscans as "These") visiting the underworld. These and his friend Peirithous are playing a board game
Board game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

, attended by Tuchulcha.

There are four Charuns shown in a fresco in the Tomb of the Charuns, and each appear to have sub-names. These are Charun Chunchules, the heavily blistered Charun Huths, Charun Lufe, and the fourth has crumbled away to illegibility. On Laris Pulena's sarcophagus, there are also two Charuns and two Vanth
Vanth
Vanth is a chthonic figure in Etruscan mythology shown in a variety of forms of funerary art, such as in tomb paintings and on sarcophagi. Vanth is a female demon in the Etruscan underworld that is often accompanied either by additional Vanth figures or by another demon, Charun . Both Vanth and...

s on either side of the figure in the center who is presumably Laris Pulena himself. De Grummond does not cite these figures as assistants, but believes Charun may be a type of creature rather than a singular god.

Many of Charun's other presumed assistants appear in the Tomb of the Blue Demons, which is also the home of the only Etruscan rendering of the aforementioned ferry of Charon.

Popular culture

In contemporary times, Charun has never been as popular as his Greek counterpart, though there have been some occurrences.
  • He appears in the poem "Back Matter" by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
    Rachel Blau DuPlessis
    Rachel Blau DuPlessis an American poet and essayist, is known as a feminist critic and scholar with a special interest in modernist and contemporary poetry.-Life and work:...

    , invoking the imagery of the Tomb of the Charuns.
  • Charun is Monster in My Pocket
    Monster in My Pocket
    Monster in my Pocket is a media franchise developed by Morrison Entertainment Group, headed by Joe Morrison and John Weems ....

     #97. Unlike Ancient depictions, he is bald, bulky, appears to be wearing no clothing, and his wings look leathery (perhaps in reference to Rovin's claim of "leathery skin") and lack feathers. http://keithdickinson.com/Monsters/thumbnails/097.jpg
  • A brief reference to Charun in The Tribune's Curse: SPQR VII
    SPQR series
    The SPQR series is a collection of detective stories by John Maddox Roberts set in the time of the Roman Republic. SPQR is a Latin initialism for Senatus Populusque Romanus , the official name of the Republic.The stories are told in first-person form by Senator Decius...

    a 2003 novel
    Novel
    A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

     by John Maddox Roberts
    John Maddox Roberts
    John Maddox Roberts is an author who has written many science fiction and fantasy novels, including his successful historical fiction, such as the SPQR series and Hannibal's Children....

     in an invocation to "Father Dis" and related figures, including "Charun of the hammer" (p. 65).
  • Charun is referred to in the song "The one who will not be named" by the metal band GWAR
    GWAR
    Gwar is a satirical heavy metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia, United States, in 1984. The band is best known for its elaborate science fiction/horror film inspired costumes, obscene lyrics and graphic stage performances, which feature humorous enactments of politically and morally taboo...

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