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Hello, and today we discussing the history of hell a fiery vault beneath the earth a frozen tomb or a sartre famously declared other people

Our ideas of hell of the underworld are shaped by religious and cultural forces for Homer and Virgil

It's a place you can visit and return from often a wiser person for it with Christianity

It's mostly a worn-way journey and a just punishment for a sinful unrepentant life

Riders and painters like Dante and Hiron Mishbosh depict a complex hierarchical world filled with the writhing bodies of

To minted sinners in the 20th century hell can be found on earth in portrayals of war and holocaust

But also in the mind particularly in the works of T.S. Eliot and Premo Levi

So what's the purpose of hell and why is it found mainly in religious concern with salvation?

Why is hell proved so inspirational for artists through the ages rather more so than heaven and why does some ideas of hell require a satan figure while others don't?

Joining me to discuss hell is Martin Palmer director of the International Consonancy on Religion, Education and Culture

Margaret Keane tutor and fellow in English. It's an Hilders College Oxford and Neil McGregor director of the British Museum

Martin Palmer, can we start by looking at the very early ideas of hell or the underworld? How do the Egyptians view it?

Well, they view it essentially as something not terribly much to worry about

Essentially until you get the salvationary religions the religions that essentially offer you a chance to make a choice as to which religion you will follow

You are brought up in your tradition and there is a slight element in the Egyptian tradition of saying

You've got to behave because if you don't you could go into the jaws of the crocodile

Hippopotamus creature Amit and be devoured but in fact nobody ever did or as far as we know

Nobody ever did in terms of the mythology

You went for judgment after your death and if your heart was lighter than the feather of truth in the scales of justice

You were welcomed by Osiris the god of the underworld into the world of the gods and you had really a very nice time

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