This book 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, Robert Garland invites readers to put themselves in the sandals of ancient peoples and to imagine their mental state moment by moment as 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.