Funeral: Did you mean...?

Psyche was the goddess of the soul in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Born a mortal woman, her beauty rivaled that of Aphrodite (Venus) and inspired the love of Aphrodite's son, Eros, god of desire. After completing a series of seemingly...

Aspasia of Miletus (l. c. 470-410/400 BCE) is best known as the consort of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. Her life story has always been given in the shadow of Pericles' fame, but she was a woman of great eloquence and...

A belief in an afterlife was central to every major civilization of the ancient world and this encouraged the recognition of the reality of ghosts as the spirits of the departed who, for one...

Harper's songs were lyrics composed in ancient Egypt to be sung at funeral feasts and inscribed on monuments. They derive their name from the image which accompanies the text on tomb or chapel walls, stelae, and papyri...

Helen is a Greek tragedy by Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE). It is usually thought to have first been performed at the Great Dionysia of 412 BCE and was part of the trilogy that included Euripides' lost Andromeda. Helen recounts an unusual...

Oenone was a nymph in Greek Mythology, the daughter of the river god Cebren and sister of the nymph Asterope/Hesperia. She was given the gift of prophecy by Rhea (mother of the gods) and the gift of healing by Apollo. Her name comes from...

Solomon Northup (circa 1807/1808 to circa 1857/1864) was a free-born African American living in New York State when he was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup was held in bondage for 12 years before...

The practice of mummifying the dead began in ancient Egypt c. 3500 BCE. The English word mummy comes from the Latin mumia which is derived from the Persian mum meaning 'wax' and refers to an embalmed corpse which was...

Female gladiators in ancient Rome – referred to by modern-day scholars as gladiatrix – may have been uncommon but they did exist. Evidence suggests that a number of women participated in the public games of Rome...

Music and dance were highly valued in ancient Egyptian culture, but they were more important than is generally thought: they were integral to creation and communion with the gods and, further, were the human response...