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 Af-terlife 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.