ORPHIC GOLD TABLETS. The Orphic Gold Tablets are thirty-five small pieces of gold foil that have been found in graves scattered throughout ancient Greece and Rome. The tablets are inscribed with texts in ancient Greek that vary in length from one word to sixteen lines of poetry. The longer texts provide instructions and information to guide the soul of the deceased as it makes its way through the underworld, and to ensure that it receives preferential treatment from the rulers there.

The tablets were labeled Orphic in the early twentieth century because scholars thought their statements reflected the tenets of a religious system the ancient Greeks and Romans believed was invented and promulgated by the legendary musician Orpheus. However, newer discoveries of tablets that refer to bacchoi, to the "Bacchic one," and to thyrsoi (staffs carried by worshippers of the god Bacchus) indicate that...