India, Jan. 11 -- Perhaps dying isn't as easy as we think?

There has always been a sense that it may be fairly complicated. The fear of what the crossover might entail sparked our ideas of the underworld.

The Sumerians, c. 2000 BCE, imagined that there would be only dust for food, and so tradition dictated that relatives visit each grave, to pour libations down through a clay pipe.

In ancient Egypt, things were thought to be so complicated that a sheaf of papyrus manuscripts, now called The Book of the Dead, was written c. 1550 BCE, to serve as a guide. It offered spells to help the newly dead across a lake of fire, through swarms of crocodiles and bugs, and out of torture chambers and booby traps.

Ancient Greece had Hades, with a cer...