Death in Mythology

Death it is common to all humans, regardless of culture, creed, religion, or race. We are all mortal, our lives are limited, and all each in our own way, seek understanding of what happens after we die.

Most cultures have a god of death into their mythology or religion. Death, as with birth, is the major parts of human life. These Gods often are one of the most important Gods of a religion. In some religions with a single powerful deity is an antagonistic deity which wages war against an all powerful benevolent God.   

In religions or mythologies which have a multifaceted system of Gods each governing various natural phenomena and features of human life, the occurrence of a deity who is designated with  presiding over death is almost essential to the basis of the religion or myth.

Not much is known of the Celtic beliefs of the afterlife. The Celtic Otherworld was an underworld, which was perceived as be a great misty island such as Avalon or in some cases simply a universe parallel to our own. The Celt Otherworld is considered as a place happier Earth; yet resembles the world in which we live, it is peaceful where everything and everyone are carefree and there is no pain.

The Buddhist afterlife is a series of paradises, each one higher and more splendid plane of consciousness, and where each person goes to based on virtue and spirituality. Nirvana, the highest plane, is when there is the release of the soul from all things human where souls exist in a pure state. The soul may spend eras in the various paradises, it eventually returns in reincarnation.

The Egyptian beliefs in death and the afterlife and the practices regarding the dead are not easily understood. Most of it is still unknown to this day, the purpose of the enormous burial chambers the pyramids, and other theories are hidden and still have to come to light to scholars.  The Egyptians believed in an underworld in that souls descend through burial. A great deal of their belief in the afterlife was associated with the pharaoh they worshipped, because the pharaoh was considered to be the representative of the gods. Proper & ceremonial burial of the pharaoh would ensure a place in a pleasing afterlife for each of his followers. The anointing and embalming of every body was a sacred ritual for the Egyptians, with priests of Anubis, God of the dead, wearing a death mask to perform the tasks. Most bodies were buried with personal items and riches that were cherished in life, so that the souls could take them with them to the afterlife.

The earliest Hebrew beliefs were pretty bleak. When the person died the soul was reduced to an insignificant wisp of psychic energy which descended into Sheol, a cavity beneath the Earth. The good and the evil both went to Sheol.  After time that changed, the good being going to one place of the afterlife and the evil in another. In Christianity this concept in its beliefs of heaven, purgatory and hell was incorporated.

The afterlife of Islam also has a paradise for the good and a hell and punishment for those who do evil. After the dead are buried and the mourners have departed, two angels are believed to visit the spirit of the departed for judgment. Questions are asked of the individual and if the dead answer all the questions correctly, they enter paradise. If the questions are answered incorrectly, they are sent to hell. There is a belief in a Day of Resurrection souls, when the dead will be made to face God and to be judged. All actions from the deceased the good and bad weighed.

In ancient Greek the most commonly known of the ancient beliefs, the afterlife has similarities to the religions of today such as Christianity.


 The Greeks believed that the dead were accompanied to the Underworld, ruled by the God Hades, and had to pay coins to the ferryman Charon to cross the River Styx, and enter the Underworld. The Greeks buried their dead with a coin or coins in their mouths, for the fee to Hades. Once in the Underworld, the dead were judged to be good or evil. The good ascended to the Elysian Fields, or Elysium, a place of paradise. The evil descended to fiery Tartarus, where they were punished for eternally, but in some instances there was a sentence of repentance for periods of time before becoming worthy to enter Elysium. This seemed to be a belief in a state of limbo where souls who were not good enough for Elysium, but not evil enough for Tartarus, would stay. This limbo is Asphodel. The Greeks also believed in reincarnation, where judges at the gates of Hades decided the incarnation of each soul.

Life and death unknown states that can only be clouded with mystery and dreams.  Idealistic ideas and conjecture can confront these obscure places where life continues on a higher plan and a happier existence.