What did afterlife mean in ancient Mesopotamia?

Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety of sources across different genres. Many literary texts, most famously the Epic of Gilgamesh, contemplate the meaning of death, recount the fate of the dead in the netherworld, and describe mourning rites. read more

The Egyptian and Mesopotamian View of the Afterlife The Egyptians’ view of the afterlife contrasts with the Mesopotamian’s view in that the Egyptians believed in the afterlife as a continuation of life on earth and the Mesopotamians believed life after death would be a miserable existence. read more

It seems that a sort of ’scheol’ (realm of the dead) was known, where the state of the dead is poor and principally equal. Later sacrifies for the ancestors coud better her state. read more

Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such “guidebooks” from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul’s fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety of sources across different genres. read more

For Mesopotamians the afterlife was a pretty grim place. For them, physical death did not mean the end. The dead continued to have some kind of spiritual existence in the underworld as ghosts, or etemmu—shady doubles of their earthly forms. read more