Thin gold sheet with Orphic inscription

The thin sheet of gold is part of a group of three found in a tomb from Thurii, and is conserved in the Museum of Naples together with two other examples from another burial. These objects are fairly widespread, both from the chronological and geographical perspective: examples have been found in Thessaly, Crete and even Rome, as well as in Magna Graecia, and they span a period of seven centuries from the fifth century BC to the second century AD, demonstrating the extensive and long-lasting presence of Orphic rites. The text of the thin gold sheet contains the formulas that were necessary for the dead to reach the land of eternal bliss, avoiding the need to undergo a cycle of reincarnation. Studies of the texts have revealed the existence of common prototypes but also the importance of subdividing the material into two categories, according to the formal structure and presence or absence of an invocation to Mnemosyne. The use of gold can be explained by the extraordinary capacity attributed to this metal in combating evil as well as its virtues of purity and nobility. The gold leaf sheets were generally placed beside the right hand of the dead person or were rolled up and placed on the tongue. Of the five found at Thurii only one, which came from the large tomb, contains instructions about how to reach the afterlife; however, like the others, it also presents the soul in front of Persephone to whom it must be demonstrated that the soul is initiated in the Orphic mysteries by repeating the formula 'I am the pure one amongst the pure'. Addressing all the gods - among whom it is possible to recognise Hades, here referred to as Eukles, and Dionysus, called Eubuleus - the soul recites the formula, beginning with the declaration ‘I come from the pure’; the soul then says that it has fled from the ‘painful cycle weighed down by sorrows’ since it has made a rapid ascent to reach the womb of Persephone and to have received, with the initiation into the cults, the gift of immortality; it ends with the standard expression ‘like a kid I threw myself towards the milk'.