A diverse group of researchers examined a significant collection of writings to understand how emotions were felt physically by people in the ancient Mesopotamian area, which is present-day Iraq, thousands of years ago.
Emotions like feeling down or experiencing butterflies in the stomach are intrinsic to being human, suggesting that we sense these emotions in our bodies as well as our minds. But have we expressed or felt these emotions the same way through history?
A diverse group of researchers examined a substantial collection of writings to explore how people in the ancient Mesopotamian area (modern-day Iraq) experienced emotions in their bodies thousands of years ago, analyzing a million words written in the ancient Akkadian language from 934-612 BC, presented as cuneiform inscriptions on clay tablets.
‘Even back in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a basic comprehension of anatomy, such as recognizing the significance of the heart, liver, and lungs,’ indicates Professor Saana Svärd from the University of Helsinki, an Assyriologist leading the research project. One particularly fascinating revelation is where the ancients located their sense of happiness, often described with terms connected to feeling ‘open’, ‘shining’, or abundantly filled — specifically in the liver.
‘When you compare the ancient Mesopotamian understanding of happiness with modern interpretations [from studies conducted by Finnish scientist Lauri Nummenmaa and his team a decade ago], they show significant similarities, apart from a distinct reference to the liver,’ mentions cognitive neuroscientist Juha Lahnakoski, a visiting researcher at Aalto University.
Additional differences between ancient and modern emotions can be observed in feelings like anger and love. Past research has found that modern individuals typically associate anger with sensations in the upper body and hands, whereas Mesopotamians identified their ‘heated’, ‘enraged’, or ‘angry’ feelings in their feet. In contrast, both modern humans and Neo-Assyrians experience love in a similar manner, although in Mesopotamia, it was notably linked to the liver, heart, and knees.
‘It remains uncertain whether we can eventually shed light on the emotional experiences that are typical for humanity in general, or, for instance, if fear has always been felt in the same body areas. We must remember that texts are just written records, while emotions are something lived and truly felt,’ explains Svärd. The researchers emphasize that while it is intriguing to make comparisons, we should be mindful of the differences when juxtaposing modern bodily maps, which are based on personal reports of emotional feelings, with the ancient Mesopotamian interpretations that stem from linguistic accounts.
Aiming for a deeper understanding of emotions
Given that literacy was uncommon in Mesopotamia (3,000-300 BCE), cuneiform writing was primarily created by scribes and was therefore mostly accessible to those who were wealthy. Yet, cuneiform clay tablets encompassed a rich assortment of texts, including tax lists, sales records, prayers, literary works, and early historical and mathematical writings.
Ancient Near Eastern texts have not previously been researched in this novel manner, linking emotions quantitatively to different body parts. This approach could be expanded to other linguistic materials in future studies. ‘This could serve as a valuable method to investigate cultural contrasts in emotional experiences,’ states Svärd, who hopes this research contributes meaningfully to discussions on the universality of emotions.
The findings from this research will be published in the iScience journal on December 4.
The corpus linguistic method, which leverages extensive text collections, has been refined over several years at the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), under Svärd’s leadership. Next, the research team plans to analyze an English textual corpus from the 20th century, which comprises 100 million words, along with Finnish data as well.
In addition to Svärd and Lahnakoski, the team involves Professor Mikko Sams from Aalto University, Ellie Bennett from the University of Helsinki, Professor Lauri Nummenmaa from the University of Turku, and Ulrike Steinert from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. This project receives support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.