In the middle of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, almost 4,000 years ago, a civil servant called Sinuhe came home to his pharaoh, Senusret I, and bowed down to him. "I found his majesty on the great throne in the portal of electrum. Then I was stretched out prostrate, unconscious of myself in front of him, while this god was addressing me amicably. I was like a man seized in the dusk, my soul had perished, my limbs failed, my heart was not in my body. I did not know life from death."
Submission can be associated with a number of emotions. Shame, envy, admiration, respect, contempt, anger and fear can be involved. Pride is generally associated with dominance, and with a 'heads up' stance. Signs of submission usually include heads and bodies down.
Much later, in the middle of the 1 st millennium BCE, Herodotus of Halicarnassus wrote about προσκύνησις or proskynesis in his Histories. He knew it was an old Persian habit, and he didn't like it. 'Instead of greeting by words, they kiss each other.'
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