Opening lines of the article:
The residents of Babylon in the first millennium B.C. saw themselves as facing their past and walking backward into the future. In the Akkadian language of ancient Mesopotamia, the word panu, or "face," relates to the past, whereas "behind" is a word associated with the future.
This reminded me of the finding that in the Aymara language, "FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO" according to a 2010 paper by Núñez and Sweetser; for more, see the 2006 UCSD press release Backs to the Future.
