Dan Brown says she was married to Jesus, but who was Mary Magdalene?

We hear the words 'Mary Magdalene' as a first name and a last name, but they aren't exactly that. She was 'Mary of Magdala' - the Mary who came from the place called Magdala.

So what do we really know about her?

We've seen previously that the earliest sources that we have for the life of Christ are the Gospels that are in our Bible today - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These were all written before the end of the first century. The Gnostic Gospels, which Dan Brown refers to, were written later, in the second and third centuries.

So if we want to see what we really know about Mary, a good place to start is with what these sources say about her. Basically, according to the Gospels:

• Mary Magdalene was one of a group of women who followed Jesus while he was travelling round Galilee. They helped to support Jesus and the rest of his followers
• Mary was one of a small group of women who were there when Jesus was crucified - when almost all his male followers had run away in terror
• Mary Magdalene and another Mary watched Jesus's body put into the tomb after he died
• Mary and some other women went to Jesus's tomb early on the Sunday morning, and found the tomb empty. She was the first person to see Jesus alive again after his death

And this is all the Gospels tell us about Mary.