What Remains of a Human Being?

In Italy, forty kilometers from Verona (the city of Romeo and Juliet, if you recall), archaeologists have discovered a burial site dating back 5,000 to 6,000 years (the 4th millennium BCE, the Neolithic period) —two skeletons of young people lying with their arms around each other and their legs intertwined. This is indeed a burial site, not the place where two loved ones died by accident: stone objects were found nearby, which were placed in graves at that time. What did those who placed the two deceased in the grave in this manner wish to convey? Do you understand why archaeologists say they were moved by this discovery? Something has reached us across the vast expanse of time. What remains of a person after death? Let’s consider this using the example of Amenhotep IV, the reformist pharaoh sometimes called “the first personality in world history,” who, having taken the name Akhenaten, attempted to carry out a religious reform in Egypt. The worship of many gods was replaced by the cult of Aten, the sun disk god, an expression of creative forces 1. The basis for considering Akhenaten the “first personality” lies in the mark he left on art. During his reign, depictions of the pharaoh and his family became portrait-like, conveying individual characteristics. The name of Amenhotep IV’s wife—Nefertiti—became a symbol of beauty. The paired portraits of the pharaoh and his wife often strike one with the liveliness of their poses and the honest depiction of Akhenaten’s own physical imperfections. The marriage to Nefertiti was not a happy one, if only because it produced only daughters; yet from the way the pharaoh, breaking with tradition, insisted on having his wife depicted, we can surmise that he truly loved her. What remains of Akhenaten? His religion has been consigned to oblivion, and his capital lies in ruins. The reformist pharaoh’s policy of peace weakened the country for a long time. Sigmund Freud suggested that the commandments of Moses, the leader of one of the pastoral tribes inhabiting Egypt, bore the imprint of the heretical pharaoh’s ideas. Look at the bas-relief depicting Akhenaten, his wife, and daughters sitting in the rays of Aten. Each ray of the life-giving sun ends with a symbol called the “key of life.” Remember the Neolithic “Venuses”—statues of women with exaggerated sexual characteristics? Is it a coincidence that the disk of Aten resembles a pregnant woman’s belly? It is made to look that way by the uraeus—a protective symbol depicting a cobra with its head raised. If Freud is right, the Christian God (or rather, our conception of him) is related to this ancient symbol. In any case, Akhenaten and Nefertiti are the first couple known to us by name, whose love for one another we know about! A fragment of a sculpture of Akhenaten and Nefertiti reflects the main thing we know about the “first individuals in world history.” The intertwining of the themes of love and death is not coincidentally explored in so many stories created by humanity. Some of them bear the mark of genius, while many are banal and tasteless. However, their prevalence is proof of a deep, archetypal connection between these themes. Here is another argument. Since the publication of Raymond Moody’s famous work *Life After Life*, the general public’s attention has been drawn to the experiences people undergo during clinical death. Without going into detail, it can be said that the dying often have similar experiences (“the light at the end of the tunnel”). Mystics see such reports as proof of an afterlife, although, strictly speaking, there is no basis for this. If you press your finger against your own eyeball through your eyelid, the world around you will temporarily split in two. Clearly, this effect characterizes not the environment, but our perceptual system (and, incidentally, serves as the simplest test for detecting hallucinations: if something hasn’t split in two, then it doesn’t exist!). The brain is the primary organ of our perception. Under conditions of oxygen deprivation, the brain’s various functions do not shut down simultaneously but exhibit characteristic disturbances before complete shutdown. Such experiences are, of course, neither proof nor disproof of an afterlife. An important element of near-death experiences (which also manifest during acute danger) is the recollection of one’s life, which in such moments can supposedly be taken in with a single mental glance. Some aspects of one’s life are perceived as secondary (“there are no pockets in a coffin”), while others are seen as its true substance. It is not so easy to articulate what is truly important. For example, some people characterize one aspect of life as knowledge, others as learning, or even as science. Here is the right word: understanding! Understanding is not just any kind of knowledge (possession of information), but only that which imparts a new quality. Many forget the second of life’s true aspects (perhaps because they were largely deprived of it). This is creativity. And finally, what people who have gone through the process of laying bare the main levers of their mental machinery most often call—love. What remains of a person? Understanding, creativity, love… 1 The first recognition of the role of sunlight for the Earth’s biosphere. After all, we truly are alive thanks to it! D. Shabanov. What Remains of a Person // Kompyuterra, Moscow, 2007. – No. 9 (677). – P. 31.