Underworld: Did you mean...?

Ceres is the goddess of agriculture and the harvest in Roman mythology. Her favor would bring humankind plentiful harvests and fruitful crops, but her wrath brought blight, drought, and famine. Usually depicted as a matron, her symbols included...

Burial in ancient Mesopotamia was the practice of interring a corpse in a grave or tomb while observing certain rites, primarily to ensure the passage of the soul of the deceased to the underworld and prevent its return to haunt the living...

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 must be pieced together from a variety...

Medicine in ancient Mesopotamia was based on the belief that illness was caused by supernatural agencies and, although medicines were given and injuries treated, magical spells and incantations were also understood as effective. Among these...

Egyptian mythology was the belief structure and underlying form of ancient Egyptian culture from at least c. 4000 BCE (as evidenced by burial practices and tomb paintings) to 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic...

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, procreation, and also of war. She later became identified by the Akkadians and Assyrians as the goddess Ishtar, and further with the Hittite Sauska, the Phoenician Astarte...

Mictlantecuhtli (pron. Mict-lan-te-cuht-li) or 'Lord of the Land of the Dead' was the Aztec god of death. He ruled the underworld (Mictlán) with his wife Mictecacíhuatl. Mictlantecuhtli was worshipped and feared across Mesoamerica. The god...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

The Queen of the Night (also known as the `Burney Relief') is a high relief terracotta plaque of baked clay, measuring 19.4 inches (49.5 cm) high, 14.5 inches (37 cm) wide, with a thickness of 1.8 inches (4.8 cm) depicting a naked winged...

The Death of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian poem relating the death and afterlife of the famous hero-king of Uruk, who had become a legendary figure. The piece is dated to before the Ur III Period (2047-1750 BCE), and although its theme informs...