Death is the one thing all humans throughout history have in common, and yet it is still a mystery. Author and professor emeritus of classics Robert Garland explores the fascinating death-related beliefs and practices of a wide range of ancient cultures and traditions: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, early Christian, and Islamic. By drawing on the latest scholarship on ancient archaeology, art, literature, and funerary inscriptions, Garland puts himself in the sandals of ancient peoples and imagines how they sought—in ways that turn out to be remarkably similar to ours—to assist the dead on their journey to the next world and to understand life’s greatest mystery.
He chronicles the ways ancient peoples answered questions such as: How do people achieve a good death and afterlife? What’s the best way to dispose of a body? Do the dead face a postmortem judgement, and where do they end up? Do the dead have bodies in the afterlife? Can they eat, drink, and have sex? And what can the living do to stay on good terms with the nonliving?
Garland is the author of What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife (Princeton University Press), which is available for purchase.
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