3700-Year-Old Psychosomatic Reaction Due to Stress and Anxiety?

Menachem Ben-Ezra , Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel:

Evidence of psychosomatic reactions to stress and anxiety have been known since ancient Greece [1]. I would like to present earlier evidence of a psychosomatic reaction to stress. The Babylonian Epic of Atra-Hasis (Biblical Noah), written no later than 1700 BC, is the ancient prehistoric myth of a man facing the adversity of the ‘legendary’ flood [2].

The following description was written originally in Sumerian cuneiform tablets. The subsequent paragraph presents Atra-Hasis' behaviour and physiological response at the celebration after the completion of the ark in the evening before the flood.

… He invited his people to a banquet… he sent his family on board, They ate and they drank. But he was in and out: he could not sit, could not crouch, For his heart was broken and he was vomiting gall. (Atra-Hasis verses 40–47, p. 93)

The verses above describe a stress reaction due to upcoming adversity. This description gives us a glimpse of stress reaction in antiquity and allows us to compare it to modern stress reactions. Furthermore, it reveals that the somatic components of stress have not changed over the millennia. Loss of appetite, agitated behaviour and nausea are known symptoms of moderate to severe stress reactions [3].