Community and individuals. How memory affects public and private life in the Ancient Near East

The perception, function and representation of memory have a practical and concrete resonance on culture and actions of ancient societies. All human actions and activities happen in time, they live in time and they are consequently affected by time: although the nature of time is external and immaterial, memory can thus work to incarnate the flow of time as a human peculiar condition in all activities and thoughts. Memory is involved in the process of transmission of knowledge according to mental construction of organizing thoughts and repeating stories and concepts: in this second aspect, a double memory or, better to say, two natures of memory interweave. An inner memory that belongs to the individual as single person; and an external memory that belongs to the place where the individual lives and to other people the single person interacts with. Thus, we should consider this second memory as a common cultural background of thoughts and familiar attitudes that are necessary to describe and understand the inter-subjectivity among people in the same context and in different circumstances and situations according to a diachronic and comparative pattern of study and investigation. The present paper aims at analyzing the reciprocity of collective and individual memories, investigating the natures of individual memories and how they work at the different levels within the ancient society.