The afterlife in Greek mythology was the underworld, or Hades, and it was a very neutral place to be - not particularly good or bad. Thanatos guides people to the underworld, and thus falls in a category of death called the psychopomp, which comes from a Greek word ψυχοπομπός ( psychopompos ) meaning “guide of souls.” Most figures of death are psychopomps, and it shows a belief that death is a transition into another stage of being rather than a final ending. Thanatos, it should be noted, was the god of nonviolent death, and he was depicted as an attractive man with wings who carried an extinguished torch. The familial relations alone reveal a lot about how the Greeks thought of death. Thanatos’ name comes from θνῄσκω ( thnēskō ), meaning “to die,” and he is the son of Nyx (the Night) and Erebus (the Darkness), as well as the twin brother of Hypnos (Sleep). One of the first personifications of death comes from Greek mythology. Thanatos - Greece Thanatos (left) lifting the body of Sarpedon along with his brother Hypnos (right). There are a lot of Deaths out there to choose from, but here are a few of the most famous. But looking at the history of Death with a capital D in various cultures reveals a lot about how cultures deal with the end of life. Today, you’ll probably only see these personifications of death in the United States during Halloween, because they’re considered a spooky curiosity more than anything else. How do you understand a natural force? One option is to make death more concrete by giving it a bodily form, creating literal personifications of death. Humans have responded to death by studying it, rationalizing it or just plain old ignoring it.
It’s both the one event that unites all living things, and also one of the hardest ideas to wrap your head around.
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