Vanth: The Winged Guide of Etruscan Death

She waits at the threshold with a torch and a pair of great dark wings — and almost no one remembers her name. Across the painted tombs and carved urns of ancient Etruria, one figure appears again and again at the moment of death: a winged woman named Vanth. She does not judge. She does not punish. She meets the dying, and she stays with them, and she sees them safely on their way. The Etruscans l...