Mapping

The Greeks and Romans gave detailed accounts of their Underworld in literary texts that let us map the Underworld's layout. Here's a view that relies on Homer's Odyssey and Vergil's Aeneid.

We're transposing this onto the map of Leeds - with some artistic licence! Obviously, we want to keep most of it a surprise, but the orientation is the same, so you can work out that the River Aire is going to become the River Styx - where you can pay the Ferryman, Charon, in Dark Arches - Tartarus (a place of judgement) equates to the courts and City Square does duty for the Asphodel/Elysian Fields.

You'll note that Odysseus (red dots) didn't get very far into the Underworld - you'll go further... Like Aeneas (purple dots), who went all the way and lived to tell the tell. Let him guide you likewise from the City Museum.

The ancient Egyptians were meticulous in mapping their underworld in both time and space and providing detailed instructions as to how to traverse it safely after death in order to enter the afterlife. The 'Book of the Dead' is the modern term for the large collection of texts and illustrations concerning Egyptian beliefs that were interred with the dead. The 'Book of the Dead' is different from the 'Books of the Netherworld', which were the exclusive preserve of the pharoah. The latter include: 'Amduat' - which divides the netherworld into twelve regions, each of which takes an hour of the night to traverse; 'The Book of Gates' - which focuses upon the passage from one region to the next; and 'The Book of Caverns'. For the Egyptian Underworld we're going to map beliefs rather than locations to Egyptian features of the Leeds landscape, so you can expect to find information linked to obelisks and Millenium Square, with characters at Temple Works.