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Walking Backwards into the Future The Conception of Time in the Ancient Near East Stefan M. Maul If we regard the Akkadian (i.e., Assyrian–Babylonian)1 terms that designate “past” and “future” as more than simple equivalents to the corresponding English terms, we make an astounding discovery. An examination of temporal terms such as “earlier” (Akkadian: pàna, pàn; pànànu(m); pàni; pànû(m)) or “former times, past” (Akkadian: pànàtu; pànìtu(m), pànù) shows that these are all related to the Akkadian pànum, or “front,” plural pànù, or “face.” The Sumerian2 equivalents to the Akkadian terms for the past are formed with the word igi, which means “eye,” “face” and also “front.” In the Akkadian and Sumerian terms for the past, the underlying word “front” is used in the sense of “something that lies before/faces the observer.” It is a similar case with terms that denote the future. The Akkadian (w)arka, (w)arkànu(m), (w)arki in the sense of “later, afterward,” (w)arkû(m) in the sense of “future (adj.),” and (w)arkìtu(m) in the sense of “something later, later days, future” are all related to the word (w)arkatu(m), meaning “reverse (side), behind.” The equivalent Sumerian terms (eger; murgu; bar) also originally mean “behind” and “reverse (side).” Although here we cannot enter upon a closer examination of Mesopotamian terminology which is so important for the understanding of the culture of the Ancient Near East, it is nevertheless clear that for a Babylonian the past lay before him—it was something he “faced”; whereas that which was coming, the future (warkìtum), was something he regarded as behind him, as at his “back.” In the mental world of our own modern society the exact opposite is, of course, the case. When we look “into the future,” we firmly believe that our gaze is fixed straight ahead. Nothing can shake our conviction that the past is at our back, that it lies behind us. While we advance along a timeline that has us “facing the future,” the Mesopotamians advanced along the same time-line but with their eyes fixed on the past. They moved, as it were, back-to-front—backing into the future. Without Miller 1 :Whats minta 1 9/3/08 4:40 PM Page 15 belaboring the image, it would indeed suggest that Mesopotamian culture was focused on the past, and, ultimately, the starting point of all existence. The concern of Mesopotamian culture with the past was, shall we say, omnipresent. In the remains of Assyrian and Babylonian culture in the first millennium A.D., one can easily recognize the extreme normative power of tradition, which permeated every aspect of life. Languages of the Ancient Near East The numerous inscriptions of the Mesopotamian rulers of the first millennium B.C.—which were left behind for posterity in the foundations of temples and palaces or made visible on reliefs and stelae —were composed in an artificial language that stood aloof from the demotic and took its cues from an ancient form of Akkadian. This language was regarded as a classic language and was spoken at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. and even then was full of archaisms. Other texts as well (religious and scholarly, epic and mythological) used this elevated form of language, which we may call “Standard Babylonian.” With its archaic sound it conjured up not only the venerable reign of Hammurabi, the ruler who united all of Mesopotamia and parts of Syria into a powerful empire in the eighteenth century B.C., but this Standard Babylonian also evoked that linguistic form of Akkadian which in the early second millennium B.C. was the first Semitic language to be widely written down (which was then passed down to the end of cuneiform culture). Two thousand years after it had ceased to exist as a spoken language, Sumerian, the oldest known language of Mesopotamia, was still regarded as a sacred tongue used to address the gods. Sumerian songs, hymns and prayers that had their origin in the third millennium B.C. were always being copied down and accompanied by Akkadian translations. Together with later re-creations from the first and second millennia B.C., these songs, hymns and prayers still played an important role in the Babylonian cult of gods in the final centuries of the first millennium B.C. Moreover, and very similar to Latin...

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