Art may represent a quest for beauty and perfection, but throughout history it has also explored a terrifying realm of doom, decay, and darkness. This program delves into the age-old human compulsion to surround ourselves with images of death. Starting with the Neolithic relics known as the Jericho Skulls, the film identifies a pattern of morbidity and death fetishism covering a broad swathe of the ancient world. Viewers also encounter gruesome stone carvings, sculpture, and paintings from the Moche and Inca peoples in Peru, the Aztec and Maya in Mexico, and the Egyptians of the First Intermediate Period—underscoring the manifold uses of death as an artistic mirror of life. A BBC/KCET Co-production. A part of the series How Art Made the World. (52 minutes)