Underworld mythology can be divided into two categories: those based on a person’s actions in life and those for all the dead. Many cultures had early concepts of an underworld where all the dead would congregate. Underworld mythology refers to where people’s spirits go after death. Some mythologies had a single underworld, while others had multiple places for the dead based on their actions in life. These types of mythology continue to influence modern religious thought and creative depictions of fantastic worlds beyond life.
Most types of underworld mythology fall into one of two basic categories: underworlds segregated based on actions a person performs in life, and underworlds intended for all the dead regardless of actions in life. Many of the older legends and myths about the various underworlds fall into the latter category, and many cultures had early concepts of an underworld where all the dead would congregate as ghosts or shadows. There are also a number of instances from underworld mythology, however, where the dead would go to different types of places depending on how the person lived or died.
The mythology of the underworld typically refers to any type of mythological system that has to do with where people’s spirits or souls go after they die. While the name “underworld” conveys the idea that this was a place beneath the real world, this was not always the case and is simply used as a single term for several systems. Some types of underworld mythology are built around the idea that the dead would go to a land beneath the land of the living, and the entrances to such places could be found in some caves. There were also mythologies where the underworld was a reflection of the world of the living, sometimes created literally as a mirror image of the world.
Some of the earliest types of underworld mythology contain an underworld where all people go to the same place after they die. Early forms of underworld mythology, such as those found in ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian texts, had a single underworld that all people would go to. The underworld of Japanese mythology is similarly inhabited and was born upon the death of one of the first gods. Similarly, the Greek underworld, at least initially, was such a place and was often referred to as Hades, though it eventually changed in myths to have different locations for different people.
There are other forms of underworld mythology where there are multiple places for the dead and where a person’s spirit went often depended on the life they lived. The Egyptian, Greek, and Roman underworld became similar to these systems, where a person would be judged after death based on their actions. Such systems often developed at least two different places for the dead, one resembling an idyllic paradise and the other a place of punishment or penance. These types of underworld mythology continue to influence both modern religious thought and creative depictions of fantastic worlds beyond life.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
