Images

Tomb of Darius I, Naqsh-e Rustam, near Persepolis, Iran, c. 522–486 BCE

Golden Cavalry Face-Mask Helmet (Type Ribchester) dating from 80-125 CE, found on the bed of the Corbulo Canal (Fossa Corbulonis) near the Roman fort of Matilo (modern Leiden). (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, Netherlands)

Cavalry Face-Mask Helmet (Type Nijmegen-Kops Plateau), brass sheet on iron core, dating to the 1st or 2nd century CE. (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden, Netherlands)

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.

The ruins of Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan, thought to be inhabited by ghosts.

Lamia, oil on canvas by John William Waterhouse, 1909, based on the Keats poem Lamia from 1820. Lamia was an ancient Greek precursor to vampires. Private collection.

A middle Corinthian Pyxis (cosmetic box) that shows friezes of lions, sirens, sphinxes and birds. At the rim there are female heads protruding. Circa 600-575 BCE, attributed to the Honolulu Painter. British Museum, London, GR 1873.10-12.1...

Bronze statue of Hadrian, found at the Camp of the Sixth Roman Legion in Tel Shalem (Israel). It was found by chance by an American tourist in 1975 while searching for ancient coins with a metal detector. Tel Shalem was once occupied by a...

The Hungry Ghost festival continues to be celebrated in China on the fifteenth night of the seventh month, when it is thought that the dead can cross over into the land of the living because the veil that separates the two worlds is thinnest...

Roman gold and saphire ring, second half of the 2nd century CE. The ring has a garnet centre stone. From an unidentified marble sarcophagus in Rome. (Palazzo Massimo, Rome)