Dead Gallery

Papyrus of Ani (Book of the Dead) - The Judgement

(Above) -Twelve Gods seated in Order, as judges before a table of offerings. (Below) - The Psychostasia of Weighing of the Conscience of Ani. The Jackal-headed Anubis trying (in the balance) the heart of the deceased against the feather (symbolising the law). On the left, Ani and his wife cn be seen in a pose of devotion; on the right an Ibis-headed Thoth, the Scribe of the Gods, notes down the resultsof this trial, whilst behind, the monster Amemit, the Devourer, looms menacingly. On the left of the balance, Shai (Destiny) with two Goddesses Renenit and Meschenit behind, all under the soul of Ani (symbolisedby a human-headed hawk and the symbol of a cradle). Date: around 1550 BCE

© Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection

Baruch Spinoza, caricature

Baruch Spinoza. Caricature of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). Spinoza is considered to be one of Western philosophy's most important philosophers. He believed that nothing exists independently except for God, and that everything that exists does so as a part of God. He considered the Universe and Nature to be God, rather than the personalised Judeo-Christian deity. He was expelled from Holland's Jewish community for these heretical views. His seminal work, Ethics (1677), outlined these views and has become one of the most important early modern philosophical works

© GARY BROWN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Samuel Hahnemann, German physician

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), German physician and founder of homeopathy. His theory was that an illness may be cured by administering minute doses of a drug which causes the same symptoms. The symptoms, he reasoned, were an effect of the body's fight against disease. During experiments on himself and his friends he found that the smaller the administered dose, the greater its effectiveness. In 1811, he published his results in Homeopathic Materia Medica. He used his methods with some success during a typhus epidemic in France in 1812. Although his results were criticised, homeopathy spread rapidly in the ensuing decades

© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY