Is this true they used to put a gold coin in the person eyes when they died back

Question:is this true that some people dug them up just to get there gold out of the coffin is this true or false ?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: is this true that some people dug them up just to get there gold out of the coffin is this true or false ?

The tradition of putting a coin in the mouth of a corpse -- or two coins on the eyes -- began in the ancient world.

It was considered payment for Charon, the ferryman of the underworld. (It had the added beenfit of holding the eyes closed, and stopping the corpse from creeping everyone out.)

The idea was, the soul of the dead person would be unable to cross the River Styx without some form of payment.

Most ancient cultures believed that some of the goods a person had in life could be transferred to the afterlife.

The placing of a coin also allowed those left behind to feel useful in some way -- at least their loved one would not be left on the wrong side of the river, to wander forever. (Unlike all those poor souls who died at sea, or without anyone who cared enough about them to perform this small ritual.)

"Resurrection-Men" dug up freshly buried corpses right up into the Victorian Period. They would take any valuables, including coins, and occasionally even sell the corpse itself for dissection. (Until about 1880, it was not possible for people to 'donate their bodies to science' and only executed criminals could be dissected in anatomy classes. This led to a black market forming around dead bodies...doctors needed practice, and they needed lots of bodies to practice on!)

They put it on the person's eyes to close them. Yea, it's true

im guessing it's true. watch the movie FROM HELL, the ending has that part.

True, they used the coins for keeping the soul at peace, to pay for a trip to heaven(an offering), but mostly to keep the eyelids closed after death, then grave robbers would go to the cemetery and look for freshly dug graves and dig up the body , steel the coins, gold teeth, jewelry, what ever was of value. GL!

In ancient times it was an obolus, a silver coin worth about a sixth of a drachma to pay Chaeron the ferryman across the river Styx.