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# To ancient Assyrians, the liver was the seat of happiness
- URL: https://www.assyriapost.com/to-ancient-assyrians-the-liver-was-the-seat-of-happiness/
- Published: 2026-03-14T23:43:52.000Z
- Updated: 2026-03-14T23:43:52.000Z
- Description: For the ancient Assyrians, emotions were felt differently in the body. A new analysis of Akkadian texts suggests happiness was linked not to the heart but to the liver, offering fresh insight into how Assyrians understood emotions and the human body.
- Author: The Assyria Post

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These early studies have revealed frequent references to body-related processes of emotional experiences, including how Akkadian considers internal organs as containers of emotions or embodied feelings. For example, the terms *libbu* (broadly, the ‘inside of the body’ or ‘torso’, but it can also refer to the belly, the heart, or the womb) and *kabattu* (‘liver; innards’) are found frequently in descriptions of embodied feelings and emotion expressions. For a specific example, sorrow is sometimes literally referred to as ‘illness of the heart’ (*muruṣ libbi).*

*Read the full story* [*here*](https://psyche.co/ideas/to-ancient-assyrians-the-liver-was-the-seat-of-happiness?ref=assyriapost.com)*.*