Charon (mythology) facts for kids

Attic red-figure lekythos attributed to the Tymbos painter showing Charon welcoming a soul into his boat, c. 500-450 BC

In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon ( or Greek Χάρων) 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 the mouth of a dead person. Archaeologists confirm that, in some burials, low-value coins were placed in, on, or near the mouth of the deceased, or next to the cremation urn containing their ashes.

Genealogy

Charon is the son of Erebus. He was also the brother of, among many others, Thanatos and Hypnos.

Appearance and demeanor

Charon as depicted by Michelangelo in his fresco The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel

Charon is depicted in the art of ancient Greece. Attic funerary vases of the 5th and 4th centuries BC are often decorated with scenes of the dead boarding Charon's boat. On the earlier such vases, he looks like a rough, unkempt Athenian seaman dressed in reddish-brown, holding his ferryman's pole in his right hand and using his left hand to receive the deceased. On later vases, Charon is given a more "kindly and refined" demeanor.

Charon is the first named mythological character Dante meets in the underworld, in his Divine Comedy. Dante depicts him as having eyes of fire.

In astronomy

Charon, the largest moon of the dwarf planet Pluto, is named after him.

In paleontology

The hadrosaurid Charonosaurus is named in Charon's honor because it was found along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East.

See also

In Spanish: Caronte (mitología) para niños