Mesopotamian divination

The earliest evidence for practice is (dating is true to this article) from the fourth millennia B.C. (Sumeria), 2100 to 2000 BC (Neo-Sumeria) and 7th century BC (Babylonia), except for circa 2100 via the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.

The area of land known as Sumer, within Mesopotamia, had a settled population within the 5th millennia BCE.{{cite book |url=http://www.britannica.com/place/Sumer |author=((The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica ))|title=Sumer - Ancient region, Iraq|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2015-12-26 }}

A seal from Sumer, (of Mudgala, Lord of Edin, Minister to Uruas {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ujn2fPCwaUAC&pg=PR7 |author=C. Preston (University of Swansea)|title=The Rise of Man in the Gardens of Sumeria: A Biography of L.A. Waddell |publisher=Sussex Academic Press |date=2009 |isbn=978-1845193157 |access-date=2015-12-27 }}) shows the word Azu, which meant water-divinator (lit. water knower), and additionally, physician. Lord Mudgala was the son of Uruas the Khad,{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZD5-CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT130 |author=L. A. Waddell |title=The Indo-Sumerian Seals Deciphered - Discovering Sumerians of Indus Valley as Phoenicians, Barats, Goths & Famous Vedic Aryans 3100-2300 B.C. |publisher=Read Books Ltd |date=2013-04-16 |isbn=978-1473391284 |access-date=2015-12-27 }} who was the first dynasty of Sumeria (via Phoenicia) of the fourth millennium BCE.{{cite book |author= L. Waddell |title=The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet - Disclosing the Sumero-Phoenician Parentage of our Letters Ancient and Modern |publisher=Read Books Ltd |date=2013 |isbn=978-1447481737 }}

Another artifact from Sumerian culture, a death amulet seal, shows the name Uzu-as' and is a resurrection amulet for the slave and seer of the Temple of the Sun, Uzu-as'. The part of the name, the word Uzu, meant in Sumerian, diviner, magician, or seer.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZD5-CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT107 |author=L.A. Waddell CB, CIE, F.L.S., L.L.D, M.Ch., I.M.S. RAI, F.R.A.S |title=The Indo-Sumerian Seals Deciphered - Discovering Sumerians of Indus Valley as Phoenicians, Barats, Goths & Famous Vedic Aryans 3100-2300 B.C.|publisher=Read Books Ltd |date=2013 |isbn=978-1473391284 |page=107|access-date=2015-12-27 }}

There is some suggestion people of this era knew of, and were experiencing, dreams as portents and sources for divination.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u3qtAwAAQBAJ&dq=Sumerian+divination&pg=PA157 |author=F.H. Cryer (University of Copenhagen)|title=Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-historical Investigation |publisher=A&C Black |date=1994 |isbn=1850753539 |page=157|access-date=2015-12-27 }}Issue 142 of Journal for the study of the Old Testament: Supplement series The Neo-Sumerian period was from circa the years 2100 to 2000 BC.{{cite book |url=https://personal.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/bronze_age.html#neosumerian |author=J. Heise |title=Akkadian language |publisher=Netherlands Institute for Space Research |date=1995-01-06 |access-date=2015-12-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929082459/https://personal.sron.nl/~jheise/akkadian/bronze_age.html#neosumerian |archive-date=29 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}

Most of the extant material showing evidence of divination practice are from the 7th century BCE {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gb-jl0nef-4C&pg=PA169|author=F. Rochberg|title=Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World|publisher=Penn State Press |date=November 2010 |isbn=978-0271046006 |page=169 |access-date=2015-12-20|series=Magic in History}} and accordingly from Babylonian culture, which dates from 1850 BCE and later.

The Sumerian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100 R.C. Thompson - [https://books.google.com/books?id=7vMtDwAAQBAJ The Epic of Gilgamesh - Old Babylonian and Standard versions] Delphi Classics, 24 July 2017 {{ISBN|1786562154}} Retrieved 14 October 2017) has the mother of Gilgamesh interpreting a dream of Gilgamesh (a portent of the advent of Enkidu).

Divination practice evolved through time from abductive positions to reckonings by virtue of an a priori, and a tendency to make generalizations about causes.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1cTZZ0453GgC&pg=PA1|author=G. Manetti|title=Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity|publisher=Indiana University Press |date=March 1993 |isbn= 0253112575|access-date=2015-12-16}}[https://web.archive.org/web/20130705045803/http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/a-priori Oxford Dictionary] [Retrieved 2015-12-17]

Two types of divination existed in Mesopotamia, divine and human.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/mesopotamia00jean|url-access=registration|author1=J. Bottéro |author2=Z. Bahrani |author2-link=Zainab Bahrani |title=Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods|publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=June 1995 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mesopotamia00jean/page/125 125] |isbn=0226067270|access-date=2015-12-16}} Mesopotamian diviners most often used a liver for divination, or else by observing the sky.{{cite journal |jstor=10.5615/jcunestud.63.0077|author=A. Winitzer (University of Notre Dame) |title=Writing and Mesopotamian divination: The case of alternative interpretation|journal=Journal of Cuneiform Studies |year=2011 |volume=63 |pages=77–94 |publisher=Journal of Cuneiform Studies Vol. 63 (2011), pp. 77-94, Published by American Schools of Oriental Research DOI: 10.5615/jcunestud.63.0077|doi=10.5615/jcunestud.63.0077 |s2cid=163943773 }}

Another difference delineated by Bottéro, is of two types of divination, both divine, but one artificial and the other natural; the artificial being divinations where through a process of "computation and constant observation" a future truth is gleaned; and natural, being a kind of gift from a god whereby direct inspired communication occurs from god to human.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8QiwAqGlmAQC|author=U.S. Koch|title=Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination|publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |year=1995 |isbn=8772892870 |access-date=2015-12-20|volume=19|series=Carsten Nieburh Institute Publications}}

Bottéro and Bahrani assert Mesopotamian divination was not just divination, and not limited in development to a type of superstition, but was developed to the extent to which it was in fact a science.

Study of portents from gods was vital within Mesopotamia throughout the entire time of its existence.{{cite book |url=https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ois6.pdf |author=A. Annus |title=Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World|publisher=University of Chicago 2010 |access-date=2015-12-17}} The gods Šamaš and Adad were associated most closely with divination, Šamaš related to divination in decisions, and Adad for oracles and omens.

Celestial divination was conducted for the purposes of the king and the state.

Diviners observed the sun by day and the stars of the night sky, which they knew as šıṭır samé , or, šıṭır šamāmī , or, šıṭır burūmē (writing of the firmament). These three things refer to their thought of the stars of the sky interpreted as heavenly writing.{{cite book |first=W.T. |last=Arnold |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQcyAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA340 |title=Let us Go up to Zion: Essays in Honour of H. G. M. Williamson on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday |publisher=Brill |date=July 2012 |page=340 |isbn=978-9004226586 |access-date=2015-12-20}}(source: "sun of the sky") By way of the celestial, this type of divination was one of Babylon's three related celestial sciences, along with astronomy and horoscopy.

The descriptions šıṭır šamê and šıṭırti šamāmī are found sometimes within Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions in special reference to those temples thought of a beautiful in a way of those temples being (lit.) like the heavenly writing.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYluiWFPsjMC&pg=PA304|first=F. |last=Rochberg |title=In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy|publisher=BRILL |year= 2010 |page=304 |isbn=978-9004183896 |series=Volume 6 of Ancient Magic and Divination|access-date=2015-12-20}}(Rochberg references A. Livingstone & Wayne Horowitz, p.304, p.1 - "...three related..." )

Impetration is a type of divination which involved a diviner asking a deity to control a medium for the diviner to foretell the future. Media might include smoke, lots, or drops of oil in, or on, water.

Divination by way of deductive thought whereby people understood the significance of forms and/ or, changes in a medium as showing and revealing a truth, is attested to within Old Babylonia, at a date of 1950 BCE{{cite book |url=http://www.eastm.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/146/134|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713235716/http://www.eastm.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/146/134|url-status=usurped|archive-date=13 July 2015|author=D.R. Brown|title=Astral Divination in the Context of Mesopotamian Divination, Medicine, Religion, Magic, Society, and Scholarship|publisher=published by the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM 25 (2006): 69-126 |access-date=2015-12-21}}(p.70 & 71)

{{See also|Haruspex#Ancient Near East|l1=Ancient Near East hepatoscopy}}

Divination of this type involved using the liver, and possibly additionally the gall-bladder.{{cite book|first=K.R. |last=Nemet-Nejat |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgIuVoDTooAC |title=Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia |publisher=Hendrickson Publishers |year=2002 |isbn=1565637127 |series=The Greenwood Press "Daily life through history" |access-date=2015-12-21}}

Examinining internal organs to make predictions is known as extispicy.[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/extispicy definition] published by The Free Dictionary [Retrieved 2015-12-20]

Extant sources reveal individuals were restricted from using extispicic means by a prohibitive cost for the performance of this divination so that royal members and nobles were mostly the only ones able to afford to know the future by this means.

Existing sources for knowledge of hepatoscopy are clay models of divined livers.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cIiUL7dWqNIC&pg=PA48|author-link1=Walter Burkert |first1=W. |last1=Burkert |first2=M.E. |last2=Pinder|title=The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age|publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1995 |page=48 |isbn=067464364X |series=Issue 5 of Revealing antiquity|access-date=2015-12-20}}

Hepatoscopic practice and belief began during the third millennium BCE. The practice is referred to in the Hebrew Bible in Ezekiel 21:21.

To make predictions, diviners had two things to aid their making of a divinatory statement – lists of previous predictions and clay models made of previously interpreted livers.

Hepatoscopic predictions were made on the entrails of slaughtered animals (Oppenheim) by observing any kind of abnormality within the organ, such as atrophy, hypertrophy, displacement, or any type of unusual marking.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=foqSvRbR3vIC&pg=PA31|author=A.A. Orlov |title=The Enoch-Metatron Tradition|publisher=Mohr Siebeck |year=2005 |page=31 |isbn=3161485440 |volume= 107 |series= Texts and studies in ancient Judaism |access-date=2015-12-20}}(A.A. Orlov references L. Oppenheim - Ancient Mesopotamia portrait of a dead civilization)

In Mesopotamian culture, the liver was thought of as being the centre of thought and feeling.{{cite book |url=http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/model-liver-divination |author=B. Nicolas |title=Department of Near Eastern Antiquities|publisher=published by the Louvre |access-date=2015-12-20}}

Study of the human body and foretelling of an individual's fate from this study is known as physiognomics. Diviners (or perhaps associated others) made and circulated these texts to successive generations, handing down knowledge for nearly two millennia.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ue6K0IU0yL0C&pg=PA72|first=Mladen |last=Popović |title=Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism|publisher=published by Brill |year=2007 |page=72 |isbn=978-9004157170 |volume=67 |series=Studies of the Texts of the Desert of Judah|access-date=2015-12-20}}(Popović references F. Kraus & B. Böch > "texts of nearly two millennia")

Physiognomic divination omens, in the first extant recorded, date from a period 2000 - 1600 BCE

The Mesopotamian dream interpreter was known as ša'il(t)u.

{{Main|Necromancy}}

Necromantic practice is shown by historical document to have begun from at least 900 BCE, and was relied upon for insight to a much greater extent within urban culture by the time of King Esarhaddon in the early 7th century BCE.{{cite book |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=tRMuAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA88 |author = S.I. Johnston |title = Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece |publisher = University of California Press |date = 2 August 2013 |isbn = 978-0520922310 |page = 88 |access-date=January 1, 2017}}

In literature, Babylonian divination material very often does not appear in the contents within written introductories, making it difficult for any reader who might want to know the contents of the text.

Enūma Anu Enlil is a text of conclusions of divination.

Šumma alammdimmǔ is a series of omens made by physiognomics dating to the close of the second millennium BCE. They are inscribed upon 27 clay tablets.

The study of divination {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5L-LBp2i8uQC&pg=PA14 |author=U.S. Koch |title=Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzāzu, Padānu and Pān Tākalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Aššurbanipal's Library |publisher=Museum Tusculanum Press |date=2000 |isbn=8772896205 |page=14|access-date=2015-12-26 |issue= 25 |series=Publications Series}} within Babylonian culture {{cite book |url=http://www.britannica.com/place/Babylonia |author=((The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica ))|title=Babylonia - Ancient region, Mesopotamia|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=2015-12-26 }} belongs to the discipline of Assyriology and began in earnest sometime during the decade of the 1870s.

• African divination
• Greek divination
• Mesopotamian magic
• Mesopotamian prayer

{{Reflist}}

Category:Divination

Category:Astronomical myths

Category:Mesopotamian religion