×
Plan ahead and save up to £200 Save up to £200 on selected funeral plans until 4 September. T&Cs apply. Click here for full details.
Two Together: Save £100!Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
Written by Adam McIlroy.
19 minute read
Across the ancient world, myths of death tried to answer the same enduring question: what happens when we die? Different cultures imagined very different answers, from journeys through shadowy underworlds and trials before the gods to rebirth, paradise and reunion with those who had died before us.
These ancient myths and legends reveal more than what people once believed about the afterlife. They show how humans have long tried to make sense of mortality, grief and the unexpected death of a loved one. Although the gods and rituals differ, many of the questions behind these stories remain surprisingly familiar today.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most fascinating ancient myths of death and afterlife beliefs from cultures around the world, looking at what they meant to the people who told them and what they can still teach us about our relationship with mortality.
Key takeaways:
Ancient Greek mythology imagined death not simply as an ending, but as a journey into a world with its own gods, boundaries and rules. Stories about Hades, Orpheus, Alcestis and Sisyphus explore some of humanity’s oldest concerns: losing someone we love, trying to escape death and learning to accept that mortality cannot ultimately be avoided.
In Greek mythology, Hades was both the god who ruled the dead and the name commonly given to his Underworld realm. Beside him was Persephone, daughter of Demeter, whose annual return from the Underworld became associated with the changing seasons and cycles of death and renewal.
The dead were believed to cross into this realm with the help of Charon, the ferryman who carried souls across an underworld river. The River Styx is the best known of several rivers associated with Hades and came to represent the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead.
These ideas influenced Greek funeral customs. Coins were sometimes placed with the dead and later traditions connected this practice with payment for Charon, while burial rites themselves carried deep importance. Greek mythology repeatedly warns of the consequences of leaving someone without the proper rites, reflecting the significance attached to honouring the dead.
The story of Alcestis was told in a play by Euripides. King Admetus, who is dying, learns that if someone else is willing to die in his place, he’ll be able to keep on living. His wife, Alcestis, gives up her life for him, before recognising that in doing so, her husband’s life would be badly diminished. Hercules appears in the nick of time to bring her back to her husband before Death takes her away.
It’s a rare example of a Greek myth with a happy ending. It teaches us that, while it is natural to sometimes feel like we want to avoid death, it wouldn’t necessarily be better to avoid it, even if we were able to. Sometimes, finding the strength to accept our own mortality can act as a springboard for us to get the most out of life whilst we can, and it can help us to accept the death of someone we love, if we are struggling to cope with the death of a parent, for instance. In fact, when he was diagnosed in 2017 with motor neurone disease, our own founder, Paul Jameson, learned this very lesson from his confrontation with his own mortality. Since then he has taken the difficulty of his terminal illness, and turned it into a life-affirming positive that makes a difference.
Sisyphus was the crafty king of Corinth, in Greece, who tried to cheat death three times. The first time, he tricked death himself by binding him in the coils of his own chain when he came to take him away; he then hid him away inside a cave. After living out his life in peace, it finally came Sisyphus’s turn to die – but he didn’t want to give up just yet. Lying on his death bed, he made his wife promise not to have a funeral for him, to which she reluctantly agreed. With that, he closed his eyes for the final time … or so they all thought.
When he got down before Pluto, the King of the Dead, he argued that because he had not had a proper funeral, he should be allowed to return to the land of the living. Pluto, convinced, agreed with him, and off he went, back to the land of the living. But, when Sisyphus got back to the surface, blearily opening his eyes again, Zeus was waiting for him. This time, he would not be able to avoid his fate. As punishment for trying to trick the gods so many times, Pluto ordained that Sisyphus would now spend eternity pushing a boulder up a hill, and that each time he was nearing the top, he’d lose control of it and it would roll all the way back to the bottom, from where he’d need to start again.
It’s a strange story with many lessons to teach us: The Greeks felt that it was foolish to try to outrun death because it comes to us all. Ultimately, fear of death is perfectly normal and natural, and maybe if Sisyphus had tried talking about death and dying with those around him, he wouldn’t have gotten himself into such a difficult situation.
It also teaches us the importance of having a funeral for someone who has died, whether or not we want to specifically mark the passing with a ceremony, and of sending them off properly, however they choose. Whilst we may not be worrying too much about placating Zeus or Hades when we arrange a funeral, each one of us can recognise the importance of honouring loved ones with a meaningful celebration of life.
It’s strange that possibly the best retelling of the Greek myths was made by Ovid – a Roman poet – in Latin. Ovid loved them so much that he made his greatest work a retelling of over 250 of them in his Metamorphoses. Ovid gave us some of the most memorable retellings of ancient myths and legends about death.
Orpheus was the half-son of Phoebus, God of music, and he was born with supernatural musical powers. On his wedding day, his beloved, Eurydice, was bitten by a snake and she died.
Orpheus decided to go to the Underworld to get her back. He sang to Pluto that even he, the King of the Dead, had been conquered by love and that he should understand. Pluto was moved to tears by his song, and agreed to give Eurydice back to him. But, on the condition that whilst leading Eurydice back to the surface, he mustn’t look back at her – if he did, he’d lose her again, permanently.
Whilst almost at the entrance to the underworld again, Orpheus suddenly felt afraid that he’d been tricked by Pluto. He couldn’t resist sneaking a glimpse over his shoulder. But when he did, he saw that he had found and lost Eurydice all over again. She vanished in a cloud of dust before him. Panicking, he ran back down to Pluto, but this time he could not move the Gods to help him. He didn’t see Eurydice until he himself had died, finally then being reunited with her.
The Orpheus myth shows us the power of music to express feelings that words cannot, but also of how love endures throughout death and beyond. A common fact about death is that those of us who’ve been bereaved, and who are coping with grief sometimes envision the appearance of those we’ve lost, and in a way, this may have been what Orpheus was really doing.
Jupiter and his son Mercury came down from Olympus to visit a town, putting the residents to a test of hospitality. They were disguised as weary travellers; with the rain pouring down and darkness setting in, nobody was willing to shelter them. Deciding to try one more house, they climbed the hill to the door of Philemon and Baucis, who let them in.
Once the wizened, slow, old couple had fed them from their meagre food store, and got a flickering fire going, the travellers revealed who they truly were: the King of the Gods, and his son. Stunned and embarrassed by their poverty, the old couple sank to their knees with difficulty, bowing before the gods. The gods made them rise, and asked them to join them outside.
Overlooking the town, Jupiter told the old couple, in thanks for their hospitality in poverty, to ask him for anything and he’d grant it. They simply asked that their house be turned into a temple to Jupiter, and that they could serve the rest of their days as its priests; they also asked that they should be allowed to die at the same time, so that neither should be deprived of the presence of the other.
All this, Jupiter granted, but before doing so, he sank the rest of the town before their eyes beneath a lake, turning all the other residents into fish, in punishment for their selfishness. Philemon and Baucis spent their remaining years in peace together, looking after the temple. Then, one day, they each found that they had been turned into a tree in their final moment, with their trunks entwining together into a single archway above the steps of the temple that had been their home.
It’s a beautiful story (leaving aside the fate of the townsfolk!) showing us that wanting to control death is a natural impulse that we have felt forever. When given the chance to ask Jupiter for any prize, peace of mind about their deaths is what Philemon and Baucis chose, as well as the chance to avoid the pain of saying goodbye to a loved one. Whilst we can’t take control of our fates with the help of Jupiter, Aura’s prepaid funeral plans offers an opportunity to take control of your end-of-life wishes!
Trees are also an abiding symbol of life and hope, used touchingly in this story. It’s perhaps for that reason that one of the most popular cremation ashes ideas is the memorial tree, where we mingle our ashes with the sapling of a new tree, growing again after death.
Ancient Egyptian beliefs about death centred on continuing life after death. Reaching the afterlife was not automatic: the body needed to be preserved, the dead had to navigate the Duat, and the deceased ultimately faced judgment. Osiris, Anubis, Ma’at and texts such as the Book of the Dead all played important roles in this journey.
Osiris was one of the most important gods associated with death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. According to the central myth, Osiris was killed by his brother Seth, who dismembered his body. Osiris’s wife, Isis, searched for and reassembled him, allowing him to be restored to life through divine power.
Rather than returning permanently to the world of the living, Osiris became ruler of the realm of the dead. His death and restoration made him a powerful symbol of regeneration and the possibility of renewed existence after death.
Osiris was closely associated with the Duat, the realm through which the dead travelled. For ancient Egyptians, his story helped make death part of a larger cycle: the body might die, but under the right conditions, existence could continue in another form.
One of the best-known ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife was the Weighing of the Heart, a judgment determining whether a person was worthy of continuing into the afterlife.
The deceased person’s heart was weighed against the feather of Ma’at, representing truth, justice and cosmic order. Anubis, the jackal-headed god closely associated with embalming and the dead, oversaw the weighing, while Thoth recorded its outcome.
A heart found to be in balance with Ma’at allowed the deceased to continue towards a blessed afterlife associated with Osiris. If it failed the test, it could be consumed by Ammit, a fearsome composite creature. Rather than simply rewarding status or wealth, the story reflected the Egyptian belief that how a person lived mattered after death.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead was not a single book with one fixed text. It was a collection of spells, prayers and instructions intended to help the deceased navigate the dangers and challenges of the afterlife.
Different selections could be written on papyrus and placed in a tomb, providing the deceased with knowledge they might need during their journey through the Duat. Among its best-known material are spells connected with judgment and the Weighing of the Heart.
In that sense, the Book of the Dead reveals just how carefully ancient Egyptians prepared for death. The afterlife was imagined as a journey for which knowledge, ritual and preparation could make a meaningful difference.
The body would be ritually embalmed with a special salt called natron to slow decomposition. It’s one of the most popular modern funeral myths that embalming preserves the body permanently; whilst this isn’t true, the ancient Egyptian process was remarkably effective. The only organ that would remain inside the body was the heart, which the Egyptians thought was the centre of our intelligence, character, and personality. The priests would wrap the body in enchanted linen; hundreds of yards per body. Finally, an enchanted scarab amulet would be placed over the heart.
Norse mythology imagined several possible destinations after death, including Hel and Valhalla. Death also formed part of the wider cosmic cycle of Ragnarök, when even many of the gods were destined to die.
Hel, a daughter of Loki, ruled a realm of the dead also called Hel, often referred to as Helheim in modern retellings. Many people who died through illness or old age were believed to go there. Unlike the Christian Hell, it was not simply a place of punishment.
Warriors who died in battle could be selected by the Valkyries and taken to Valhalla, Odin’s great hall. There, the chosen warriors prepared to fight alongside Odin during Ragnarök.
During Ragnarök, gods including Odin and Thor are destined to die as the existing world is devastated. Yet a renewed world follows, making death part of a broader cycle of destruction and renewal.
Ancient Mesopotamia produced some of the oldest recorded myths about death, including Inanna’s descent into the Underworld and Gilgamesh’s search for immortality.
The Sumerian goddess Inanna descends through seven gates into the Underworld ruled by Ereshkigal, losing her symbols of power along the way. She dies but is eventually restored, making the story an early exploration of death, descent and return.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the death of Enkidu leaves Gilgamesh terrified of his own mortality. He searches for immortality but ultimately fails, learning that death cannot be escaped. The story remains a powerful ancient reflection on grief, mortality and finding meaning within a finite life.
We hope that you have enjoyed this whistle-stop tour through ancient myths and legends about death. Aura was started in 2019 as a platform that could help people to plan their own funeral and prepare for the end of their lives. Since those days, we have evolved into the UK’s top-rated ‘Cremation Services’ provider on Trustpilot, with 4.9/5 stars. We’ve earned this high praise from the families who’ve entrusted themselves to our care, and who’ve appreciated our compassionate, family-run approach to service.
Our funeral services are available to those seeking a direct cremation now at short notice, as well as those seeking a funeral plan for the future. In either case, our industry-leading, exceptional Aura Angels will be there to guide families through the difficulty of funeral arranging. Whilst they might not have much advice on how to enter the Ancient Egyptian afterlife, you can count on them to coordinate a funeral, either for yourself or a loved one, with diligence and respect, making sure that all paperwork is completed correctly, and even lending an ear where needed.
If you’re looking for a bit more information on planning your own funeral, why not download our helpful funeral plan brochure? Take the time you need to think things through, and, should you have any questions, you can always call us. Our wonderful team is always available on the phone should you need them, and they are waiting for your call.
If you’d like to know more about how to plan a cremation with Aura, our brochure is a helpful place to begin.
Our funeral plans are a helpful way to put everything in place for you or someone else.
When the time comes, our experienced team will be here to guide you through each step, offering support and advice whenever you need it.
To find out more about how our plans work, what’s included, and our story, you can request a brochure by clicking the link below. We will then send you a copy by email or First Class post—whichever you prefer.
Life in ancient times was often short and unpredictable, so many cultures developed stories and rituals centered on death to make sense of mortality, grief, and what might come after. These myths helped people process loss and gave meaning to the end of life.
Alcestis teaches that even though avoiding death is a natural desire, accepting it can lead to greater appreciation for life. It also shows the strength of love and sacrifice, reminding us that confronting mortality can be life-affirming.
Sisyphus tried to cheat death and was punished with eternal struggle. His story reminds us that death is inevitable, and trying to deny or avoid it can make things harder. It also highlights the importance of holding a proper funeral to honour the person who has died.
This myth explores the deep emotions tied to grief and the longing to reunite with lost loved ones. It shows that even with great love, letting go is sometimes necessary, and that our memories and feelings can keep people close to us after they’re gone.
The Egyptians used the Book of the Dead as a spiritual guide and practised mummification to preserve the body for its journey. They believed in a detailed afterlife that required preparation, rituals, and moral living, highlighting the importance of planning ahead.
This Roman myth shows how love, humility, and kindness can be more valuable than wealth. It reflects a timeless wish to avoid being separated by death, and reminds us of the power of simple, meaningful wishes at the end of life.
Though the stories are old, their themes—grief, remembrance, honouring loved ones, and preparing for death—still resonate today. Just as ancient cultures planned for the afterlife, modern planning through prepaid funerals or memorial services can help families feel more prepared and at peace.
Mythological figures who escort or guide the dead are often called psychopomps. Greek mythology includes Hermes, who conducted souls towards the Underworld, and Charon, who ferried the dead across its waters. Anubis was closely associated with guiding and protecting the dead in Egyptian religion, while other cultures developed their own guides.
Different ancient cultures imagined different rulers of the dead. Hades and Persephone presided over the Greek Underworld, while Osiris became ruler of the Egyptian dead. In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal ruled the underworld, while Norse mythology associated Hel with the realm that shared her name.