The National Geographic article discuss the topic of how the ancient religions viewed the afterlife. The article breaks down the vision of Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans view of the immortality and spirit realm. When reading through this article as well as the lecture notes that we had in class it seems that most ancient religions believe in a type of immortality or spirit realm. They are not exactly the same from start to finish of death but all have a type of version of heaven and hell.
The Mesopotamian pictured a sphere that was equally divided into half that was existent in real living and the realm of the dead. The Mesopotamian believed that when one was dead that their underworld was horrible and you need items such as food,
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The Egyptians believe so much that the afterlife was the best place to be other than their time on earth that they believed in building their kings palaces out of cheap material like mud-brick, weeds, and wood. When the Egyptians passed away they were buried in a tomb were built from stone. Egyptians also see afterlife similar but yet not exactly the same as the Mesopotamian. The Egyptians also have a ruler of the afterlife who is called, Osiris who is a god of the dead but also controls everything on earth just like the Mesopotamian but the Mesopotamian rulers of the afterlife do not control everything on earth. The Egyptians unlike the Mesopotamian believed that the deceased individual would have to navigate through hills, fiery lakes, and past hostile demons. This belief of afterlife has some concepts that am in agreement and disagreement with. I agree that the tombs should be built with something more solid and nice since that is your finally resting place. I disagree that in order to be able to arrive in the peaceful eternal life that you must fight your demons and navigate your way through versus rivers, hills, and valleys. I believe that when you passed on to the afterlife that you should have already fought your demons in your current living life to be able to be forgiven and rid of your demons before entering the eternal life. I also feel like having to navigate …show more content…
The Greece had a pretty grim view of the afterlife just like the Egyptians. The Greece indicated that Hades the ruler of the afterlife received the short end of the stick on how much territory he was assigned which may have caused him to be bitter and ruler of the underworld. The Greece and Egyptians have very similar views on the afterlife. It seems that both religions believe that you must go through and travel through some type of field or river in order to get to the afterlife. The dead body in the Greece religion would be buried with a gold coin in their mouth in order to be able to catch a ride on the boat to get to the underworld. This is something that I don’t agree with because you are basically paying your way into the underworld only to be treated to a miserable afterlife for eternity. I don’t see how that seems far for you to have to pay just to be treated horribly. I don’t agree with this religion view just like I do not agree with most of the Egyptians
According to the Romans, people are sent to the River of Forgetfulness so they can reincarnate into another life. However, those who have acted badly in their lives do not have the option of reincarnation reincarnation, and, instead, must stay in perdition forever. The Blackfeet Indians believed in a ghost camp afterlife where all the dead went In the reading it did never say if good or bad people live there or if all dead people go there or only some; in this story there isn’t much information discussing the afterlife so I don’t really understand everything about what they thought would happen to you after death. The third myth is about what the Mantu think about the afterlife. In neither of the stories it really discusses much about it, the first myth the Man who would shoot Iruwa just talks about how the sun gods guard the underworld nothing more. In the second myth the girl who Wanted New Teeth all it talks about regarding the afterlife is that the chief, Imana brought back the woman’s children. One of the most interesting things in it was the egyptian mythology. It says once before entering the
The way the Etruscans perspective the afterlife and death was unique compared to the others culture at the time. For example in their tombs, where death should be focused, the Etruscans focused more on life instead on death. In the history of the Etruscans art the notion of death is rarely shown or mention. There was no depiction of actually death or scenes of a spiritual journey to the afterlife. What the Etruscans did was creating a home for the dead, focusing on connecting the life of the body with the life of the spirit.
In the ancient Egyptian culture, the belief was that there was a life force and spirit inside of the body, known as the ‘Ka’. Therefore, mummification was performed as a ritual to preserve the physical features of the body as well as to protect its inner spirit, mainly to ensure that the ‘Ka’ could recognize the body where it may dwell in the eternal life. Thus, the funerary psychology of ancient Egyptians was that death did not bring an end to living, but instead was only an escape from the physical human life and a gateway to immortal being. Due to the fact that a being’s life span was short in ancient times, people’s main hopes rested in their afterlives, where they would be with the gods (Stockstad 121).
The grandeur with which Egyptians regarded their funerary customs does not come without explanation. They delighted in tying the occurrences of the natural world with supernatural dogma, and their burial practices exemplified this deluge of religion. A special deity was even attributed to cemeteries and embalmers: Anubis (Fiero, 46). Due to this deep sense of religion, a fixation with the afterlife developed within their culture. The Egyptian afterlife, however, is not synonymous of heave, but, rather, of The Field of Reeds, a continuation of one’s life in Egypt meant “to secure and perpetuate in the afterlife the ‘good life’ enjoyed on earth” (Mark 1; “Life in Ancient Egypt” 1). The pursuit of this sacred rest-place prompted the arousal of intricate Egyptian funeral rituals.
Afterlife to the Greeks back then was far more important and sacred than living life itself. Everything they did while they were alive was to please the many gods they worshipped. They built temples for their Gods, made statues to symbolize their Gods, and had a different God to explain things that we now say are an act of mother nature. It may seem rather foolish to us when we study their beliefs and compare them to modern day beliefs. I am sure the Greeks would have considered us to be heathens and put us to death for our ways and beliefs.
There were many ways that the Ancient Egyptian society and the Mesopotamian society were similar yet at the same time they were very different. Egyptians and Sumerians agreed on religion in a sense that both cultures were polytheistic. However, the relationships between the gods and goddesses were different between the Sumerians and Egyptians. This essay will discuss those differences in culture, religion and the viewpoints on death and afterlife.
The Christian worldview emphasizes on one absolute God who is eternal and sacred. The origins that Christians follow is written in Genesis 1, proclaiming God spoke and created the world. God then created man in the image of God.
Indeed, Mesopotamian civilization certainly had much stricter views of life and the afterlife. Their views of the fragility of their mortality seemed to be pessimistically realistic. They seemed to accept that their gods gave them this life and nothing else. In the excerpt from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a quote that summarizes their
In Egypt, praising death and the afterlife is a big part of the culture. The Egyptians make tombs and pyramids so that they can live a successful life in the afterlife. The afterlife means that a person will be dressed in all clean clothes and white shoes and will be standing in front of the God of the underworld (Attar). The Egyptians call this day Judgement Day because the God of the underworld decides the persons fate if the person passes the test that the God gives the person (Attar). If the person does not pass the test then they will a die again as a second death. Most people pass the test because the Book of the Dead, that was written in 1550 BC, gives specific instructions of learning to survive in the afterlife. The afterlife to the Egyptians mean that the spirit of the person leaves the body but only temporarily (Attar). They say that if the spirit returns every night and if it doesn’t it ruins the chances of having a successful
The ancient Greeks portrayed the underworld as a place for all the dead and clearly visualized it in their myths and legends. The underworld in Greek mythology was not a lively place, for it was where all the dead souls went. When a person dies, the soul is sent to Hades, a more formal name for the underworld. The dead would go to Hades because there was no annihilation in the Greek mythology. The dead are dead because they have a flavorless and unhappy existence".
While many people today seem to be scared to die, and make great strides to avoid an early death, this is not a new human concern. In fact, Dr. Peter J. Brand did some extensive research on how people in Ancient Mesopotamia viewed death and the afterlife. He believes death was extremely scary to people of this region. In his article titled: Dying: Death and the Afterlife, Brand states, “Like all human cultures, the people of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were greatly troubled by death.” (Brand pg. 1) Apparently, it death was even more dreadful in the minds of the Mesopotamians. “Mesopotamian views of death were more pessimistic, resulting in less elaborate preparations for death.” (Brand pg.1) On the contrary, it seems that there would have been a lot of preparation involved, since the journey to the underworld alone was a perilous feat. This tells us that there was nothing glorified about death, and nothing exciting about traveling to the underworld. However, it reveals that there was a lot of confusion surrounding death, and confusion how to deal with it. Dr. Brand goes on to talk about how the underworld was a ...
To the early Greeks, death was dark and mysterious. Early myth about the underworld and life after death is very vague, and it is likely that the Greeks just did not understand death or the underworld. In Homer’s myths the underworld, Erebus, was the child of Chaos along with Night. The early Greeks, according to Hamilton, believed that
The Egyptians believed very much in life after death. As Taylor states in Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, “It is often observed that they appear to have devoted greater efforts and resources to preparing for the afterlife than to creating a convenient environment for living” (Taylor, 2001:12). The Egyptians viewed life on earth as one stage and death as the beginning of another. They believed that, “human existence did not end with death and that survival of the body played a part in the new life” (Taylor, 2001:12). One of the key elements in the Egyptian culture and religion was the preservation of the body. The body was the most important aspect because it was like a portal through which an individual could continue to live after death (Taylor, 2001:46). The Egyptians began building tombs for these bodies to keep them from decaying.
The Mesopotamian people also believed in an afterlife. Through the Epic of Gilgamesh, we see that this civilization had an ancient version of what we consider to be heaven and hell. Their hell was controlled by the Queen of Darkness, and was believed to be a place of no return. The epic describes this place as a place of darkness where "dust is their food and clay is their meat"(sources, p5). Their underworld was where everyone who stood in the way of the gods.
Throughout history, the concept of death and an afterlife has always been present regardless of the culture or religion. It has also been very influential in literature and other writings. In the epic poem The Odyssey, by Homer, there is a portrayal of the Greek beliefs of the afterlife. The Bible addresses this theme as well in the gospel of Matthew. Between these two works, there are noticeable differences about the beliefs of death due to the different cultures in which they were written. Despite the many variations, there are some slight similarities regarding the afterlife. Although the two writings were composed in different cultures and time periods, the notions of an afterlife in each piece can be easily related.