Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife. Through March 18, 2019 at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.

Underworld: Imagining the Afterlife. Through March 18, 2019 at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California.
Organized around a monumental funerary vessel on loan from National Archaeological Museum in Naples and recently conserved at the Getty Villa, this exhibition explores depictions of the Underworld in the art of Greece and southern Italy. The Underworld was a shadowy prospect for most ancient Greeks, characterized primarily by the absence of life’s pleasures. Perpetual torment awaited only the most exceptional sinners, while just a select few—heroes related to the Olympian gods—enjoyed an eternal paradise. Initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries, an annual festival in Greece, promised good fortune in both this world and the next. Outside of mainstream religious practice, devotion to the mythical singer Orpheus and the god Dionysos also offered paths to achieving a better lot after death. Beyond tales of famous wrongdoers and rulers of the dead, the objects on view highlight the desire for a blessed existence after death.

Tablet with Instructions for the Deceased in the Underworld, Greek, 350–300 BCE, gold. Courtesy of The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Those of us who study ancient Egypt are familiar with the Egyptian Book of the Dead with spells to help the deceased traversing the journey to the afterlife. Apparently the Greeks had something similar!

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