Death: Did you mean...?

The author of The Life and Death of Ancient Cities, Greg Woolf talks about the history of cities in the ancient world. Why did all cities not survive? What constitutes a city? How long have humans been creating cities? All of these questions...

A public lecture by Robert Ritner, professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute in Breasted Hall. Dr. Ritner is a world-renowned expert on Egyptian religion and mythology, and his lecture focused on the enduring power and appeal of...

A map illustrating the rapid spread of the 14th-century plague pandemic commonly known as the "Black Death", across Europe and the Middle East. The second such pandemic (after the 541 - 549 outbreak during the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian...

Miniature from a folio of the Antiquitates Flandriae, depicting the citizens of Tournai, Belgium burying those who died of plague during the Black Death. By Pierart dou Tielt (c. 1340-1360 CE). Made c. 1353. (Royal Library of Belgium)

"Dance of the Dead" fresco from the Church of St. Mary in Beram, Croatia. Painted by Vincent of Kastav, 1471. Artwork depicting the "Danse Macabre" motif became popular in Europe after the Black Death.

Hel, the Norse Queen of the Underworld, as portrayed by the Australia-based artist Tara Ryzebol in 2006. Hel was a female character in Norse mythology who ruled the realm of the dead of the same name. Her kingdom was said to be a gloomy and...

This crushed skull and its surrounding elaborate headdress was excavated (en bloc) from one of the royal cemeteries at Ur, the Great Death-Pit. This is a head of one of queen/princess Pu'Abi's female attendants. Early dynastic period, circa...

Hel, the Norse Queen of the Underworld imagined by user Mkasahara published on 24 June 2019. Hel was a female character in Norse mythology who ruled the realm of the dead of the same name. Her kingdom was said to be a hopeless, gloomy and...

Upon death, ancient Greek culture called for placing a coin, or obol, in the mouth of the deceased to pay Charon for rowing him/her across the River Styx to the afterlife.

Exhumation of John Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384), English theologian and translator of the Bible 41 years after his death, etching by an unknown artist. Wellcome Collection, London.