Immortality: Did you mean...?

Castor and Pollux (the Dioscuri) are figures from Greek and Roman mythology considered the twin sons of Zeus or Jupiter. Semi-divine figures, the twins were credited with the role of saving those in trouble at sea or in grave...

Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis (354-430), better known as Augustine of Hippo, is extolled as the greatest of the Christian Church Fathers. More than any other writer, he developed what would become known as systematic theology...

Ignatius of Loyola (l. 1491-1556) was a Basque soldier who became a Catholic priest and theologian after a mystical experience convinced him he was called to the service of Christ. He founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) to...

Chiron (also spelt Cheiron) is a wise centaur (half-man, half-horse) in Greek mythology, who was a friend and tutor to many legendary Greek heroes, including Achilles and Jason. Chiron's parentage differed from the rest of the centaurs...

Leda is a figure from Greek mythology who was famously seduced by Zeus when he took the form of a swan. She was a queen of Sparta and mother of beautiful Helen who sparked the Trojan War, and the Dioscuri twins. Leda and the swan was a...

Egyptian faience is a glassy substance manufactured expertly by the ancient Egyptians. The process was first developed in Mesopotamia, first at Ur and later at Babylon, with significant results but faience production reached its...

Andromache is a Greek tragedy written by Euripides (c. 484-407 BCE), one of only 19 plays (out of 92) to survive. The play is actually in two parts, and like Sophocles' Women of Trachis, it has no central character. The first part...

Daily life in ancient China changed through the centuries but reflected the values of the presence of gods and one's ancestors in almost every time period. Villages like Banpo show evidence of a matriarchal society, where...

Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such “guidebooks” from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul's fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife...

The concept of the afterlife changed in different eras of Egypt's very long history, but for the most part, it was imagined as a paradise where one lived eternally. To the Egyptians, their country was the most perfect...