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Again, in many places throughout Greece, where this use of a coin is no longer known, a substitute of more Christian character has been found. On the lips of the dead is laid either a morsel of consecrated bread from the Eucharist[225], or more commonly a small piece of pottery—a fragment it may be of any earthenware vessel—on which is incised the sign of the cross with the legend Ι. Χ. ΝΙ. ΚΑ. (‘Jesus Christ conquers’) in the four angles[226]. Here the choice of the inscribed words of itself seems to indicate the intention of barring the dead man’s mouth against the entrance of evil spirits; and as final proof of my theory I find that in both Chios[227] and Rhodes[228], where a wholly or partially Christianised form of the custom prevails, the charm employed is definitely understood by the people to be a means of precaution against a devil entering the dead body and resuscitating it. Nor must the mention of a devil in this connexion be taken as evidence that the Chian and Rhodian interpretation of the custom is not ancient. I shall be able to show in a later chapter that the idea of a devil entering the corpse is only the Christian version of a pagan belief in a possible re-animation of the corpse by the soul[229].