Afterlife: Did you mean...?

Pets were as important to the Norse of the Viking Age (c. 790-1100 CE) as they were to any other culture, past or present. The Vikings kept dogs and cats as pets and both feature in Norse religious iconography and literature. The Norse also...

To the ancient Egyptians, death was not the end of life but only the beginning of the next phase in an individual's eternal journey. There was no word in ancient Egyptian which corresponds to the concept of "death" as usually defined, as...

The land of ancient Egypt was alive with the spirit of the gods. The sun god Ra broke from the darkness every morning in his great boat, bringing the light, and many of the gods watched over the people by night as the stars. Osiris caused...

The central cultural value of ancient Egypt was ma'at – harmony and balance – which maintained the order of the universe and the lives of the people. Keeping balance in one's life encouraged the same in one's family and, by extension outward...

The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys is an ancient Egyptian text in which the two goddess-sisters call the soul of the god Osiris to rejoin the living. The poem takes the form of a call-and-response liturgy and the dual entreaties of the...

The Nile River was the source of life for the ancient Egyptians and so figured prominently in their religious beliefs. At night, the Milky Way was considered a heavenly Nile, associated with Hathor, and provider of all good things. The Nile...

The medieval Church informed the people's religious imagination during the Middle Ages (c. 476-1500) and the world was therefore interpreted - even by heterodox Christians - through the Church's lens. Ghosts – referred to as revenants – were...

The Death of Ur-Nammu is a Sumerian lament over the passing of the king Ur-Nammu (r. 2047-2030 BCE), founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, who was killed in battle fighting the Gutians in 2030 BCE. The poem is frequently cited for its depiction...

For the ancient Egyptians, life on earth was only one part of an eternal journey which continued after death. One's purpose in life was to live in balance with one's self, family, community, and the gods. Any occupation in Egypt was considered...

Gilgamesh is the semi-mythic King of Uruk best known as the hero of The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2150-1400 BCE) the great Babylonian poem that predates Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by 1500 years and, therefore, stands as the oldest piece of epic...