My scientific interests related to the problem of Death’ personification in ancient mythology and later. Recently I’ve been interested in the representation of Death’ image in the Middle Ages.

Thanatos is a god of the death in the ancient Greek mythology. With the adoption of Christianity it was forgotten, but it is impossible to renounce the deity that people used to believe for centuries immediately. That is why this image transferred to the transcendental understanding of death in Christianity. Therefore, the death goes in black clothes and have wings as Thanatos and produces action of killing with a sharp object (bow, sword, scythe, trident). All of this suggests a continuity of the image of death from the Ancient spiritual tradition to the Medieval.

The understanding of death in the Early Middle ages was very different from the same understanding in the High Middle ages. In the Early Middle ages people did not have fear of death itself. Ar’es explains that in their world there wasn’t the concept of the "Day of judgment". Instead, death for them is a dream that will last "until the end of time", until the second Coming of Christ, all people except the most serious sinners will awaken and enter the Kingdom of heaven. These eschatological views based on the mental basis, but not on theological.

More interesting is the idea of death in the High Middle Ages (from Eleventh to Fourteenth centuries). In connection with the development of the concept of "doomsday" death was perceived not as a dream but as something inevitable, that in the religious consciousness of those people drew scary images, which has found its expression in paintings, frescoes, engravings, etc. "The Revelation Of St. John" played a very important role in the development of ideas about "the last judgment" and death in general. In the revelation after removing by Holy Lamb four seals of the seven appear the horsemen of the Apocalypse: War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. One of the first images of riders is their image in the "Apocalypse of Saint Sever" Biata Libenskeho, dating from the VIII-th century. In this work, Death is presented as a young man, the hallmark of which from other riders is a white horse. For a long time the image of the horseman of Death doesn’t change. For example, in the eleventh century in the "Bamberg Apocalypse", Death portraited as a young men distinctive of which is also the pale horse. Under the evolution this image was changed. Afterwards a distinctive feature of death from the other horsemen were not only pale horse, but the rider who was to be depicted in the form of a skeleton. An important detail in this image of Death is a sword. It can be assumed that this incarnation of the horseman incorporates the elements of Ancient Thanatos.