Images of Pre-existence in the Sumerian Literary Texts

Abstract

Sumerian literary texts contain a lot of images and judgments, which subsequently became the subject of philosophical refl ection. The article deals with fragments of epic plots, incantations and the royal inscription, from which we can extract the ideas of the Sumerian culture about pre-existence of the world and man. As a result of the analysis of the texts it appears that pre-existence was for the Sumerians some kind of ideal state of man and the world, a way of holiness and happiness. Characteristic features of pre-existence were absence of spacetime and potential stress of forces which subsequently will confront each other (top and bottom, male and female). The ancient idea of pre-existence only recently began to be studied in an anthropological perspective. The theory of primary experience of M. Merleau-Ponty is very close in its basic ideas to the Sumerian concepts of pre-existence. On the contrary, opinions of modern Assyriologists are very far from anthropology of Sumerians themselves.