Ghosts: Did you mean...?

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...

Ghost stories were the earliest form of literature in ancient China. They were almost certainly part of a very old oral tradition before writing developed during the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) and they continue to be...

A text known as The Lay of the Harper, dating from the Middle Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) encourages its audience to make the most of the time because death is a certainty: Make a holiday! And do not tire of playing! For no...

Ghosts in ancient Mesopotamia were understood as a reality of life, just as they were in other civilizations of antiquity. Although the cultures of the various Mesopotamian civilizations differed...

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...

Ghosts (obake or yurei) appear in ancient Japanese folklore and literature, usually in moral tales designed to both warn and entertain but they were also an important element of ancestor worship. If the deceased members...

Toward the end of The Ballad of the Alamo (1960), recording artist Marty Robbins sings: Now the bugles are silent And there's rust on each sword And the small band of soldiers Lie asleep in the...

In Norse belief, the soul of the deceased might wind up in any one of a number of afterlife realms. There was Valhalla, the realm of Odin where the dead warriors drank, fought, and told stories, Folkvangr ('the Field...

The best-known vision of the Norse afterlife is that of Valhalla, the hall of the heroes where warriors chosen by the Valkyries feast with the god Odin, tell stories from their lives, and fight each other in preparation...

Ghosts, demons, spirits, and monsters have been haunting humanity for at least 3,500 years. The so-called “Ghost Tablet” (c. 1500 BCE), from ancient Babylon, depicts a woman leading a ghost to the underworld...