The Centre for Ancient World Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences existed from 2006 to 2012. In March 2011 it held its third corporate Symposium, Funeral Rituals and Afterlife Visions. This volume publishes the eleven papers presented by members of the nine research units then integrated. Alike in the previous volume of the series, Rituals - Providers of Cultural Identity (Origines 2, 2012), the authors focus on historic facts, including preliterate and literate societies. According to their scientific facilities they use differing methodological approaches: Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, Mycene, Classical and Hellenistic Greece, Rome, Patrology, Late Antiquity, coins from post-antique sepulchres, collected now under the title Funeral Rituals - Death and Afterlife in Prehistory and Antiquity.