Although we guess of our emotion as being verify by our Einstein , that does not mean they ’re limited to our heads alone . From feeling heavy - hearted when sad to butterfly in our stomach when we ’re excited or unquiet , it seems emotions can befeltthroughout our bodies . But has this been the pillowcase for preceding cultures or were emotional experience felt up or expressed other than ?
old research has testify that subjective somatic sensation during emotion is pretty consistent across refinement , which suggest there may be a sharedbiologicalroot of emotion . This has been reach through ego - report method – where participant provide info about themselves – which have show that emotions arouse through things like genial mental imagery , picture , texts , and euphony are oftenmappedonto representations of the human body in alike way .
But while self - report methods and research laboratory studies may be useful for understanding the subjective feelings of different people from unlike cultures today , it is not equal to of doing so for long - lose cultures or long - dead individuals . And yet there are ways to shine Light Within on these experience and to understand the inner animation of those lost to account .
Both modern and Mesopotamian people appear to feel love in similar ways, but there are some important differences.Image credit: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al., Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski, 2024 (CC BY 4.0).
In a new multidisciplinary study , researchers examined a large dead body of texts to see whether the ancient people in what wasMesopotamia(within modern Iraq ) , have emotion in their bodies . The team did so by analyzing a million words register on cuneiform tablet belonging to the ancientAkkadianlanguage from 934 - 612 BCE .
" Even in ancient Mesopotamia , there was a rough understanding of bod , for object lesson the importance of the heart , liver and lungs , " Professor Saana Svärd of the University of Helsinki , an Assyriologist who led the inquiry undertaking , explained in astatement .
So where did the ancient citizenry living in this regionfeeltheir emotions ? Well , interestingly their bodily experiences were quite similar , albeit with some intriguing difference of opinion from ours today . If you were someone survive at the time , you might express feelings of felicity in words colligate to “ unfastened ” , “ shining ” , or being “ full ” , but they were not related to the warmness as we may say today . Instead , they were place in the liver .
For Mesopotamians, anger was often felt in the feet, unlike modern people who feel it more acutely in their upper bodies and in their hands.Image credit: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al., Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski, 2024 (CC BY 4.0).
“ If you liken the ancient Mesopotamian bodily map of felicity with modern somatic maps , it is mostly like , with the exception of a notable glow in the liver ” , Juha Lahnakoski , a cognitive neuroscientist and visiting researcher at Aalto University tally .
Another contrast full stop for emotional experience concern to those of choler and love . Someone asked to say where they finger angriness today may indicate somewhere in their upper consistence or even their hands , but ancient Mesopotamians felt “ heated ” , “ enraged ” , or “ angry ” in their feet . Similarly , while love was show in ways that were much alike those of innovative the great unwashed , the Neo - Assyrians associate it more with their liver , heart , and even their knees .
" It remains to be seen whether we can say something in the future about what kind of emotional experiences are distinctive for human beings in general and whether , for instance , fear has always been felt in the same character of the body . Also , we have to keep in mind that texts are texts and emotions are lived and experient , " Svärd added .
For the Mesopotamians, happiness caused their livers to “light up” and be “Open”, which is not something we tend to feel these days.Image credit: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al., Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski, 2024 (CC BY 4.0).
Careful comparisons and deeper meanings
This is an of import degree to keep in mind . Although it is tempting to draw decipherable - cut comparisons between expressions today and those immortalize in the past , we have to remember that the modernistic results fall from ego - reported bodily experiences , whereas the Mesopotamians ' are based on the reading of linguistic descriptions on their own .
Literacy rates were not like they are today . Being literate was importantly rarer and set apart to scribes and the very wealthy . This gives us a more circumscribed number of people capable to state themselves in writing , even though cuneiform stiff tablets contain a wide pick of texts , include revenue enhancement lists , sale document , prayer , lit , other histories , and maths .
This cogitation is the first to submit these Ancient Near Eastern write sources in this way – quantitively linking emotions to body parts . It has give rise a methodological analysis that may be utile for other speech and contexts as well .
" It could be a useful way to explore intercultural differences in the way we go through emotion , " Svärd add .
It is possible such future work will contribute to discussions around the universality of emotions .
The theme is published iniScience .
