Mesopotamian divination

Mesopotamian divination is divination within the Mesopotamian period.

Perceptual elements utilized in divinatory technique include the astronomical (stars and meteorites), weather and the calendar, the configuration of the earth and waterways and inhabited areas, the outward appearance of inanimate objects and also vegetation, elements stemming from the behavior and the birth of animals, especially humans.[1]

Magic was used to counter a negative fate foretold by divination.[2]

Dating and development

Dating

The land of Sumer within Mesopotamia had a settled population within the 5th millennia BCE.[3]

Sumeria

A seal from Sumeria, of Mudgala,[4] Lord of Edin, Minister to Uruas,[5] shows the word Azu, which meant water-divinator (lit. water knower), and additionally, physician.[4] Lord Mudgala was the son of Uruas the Khad,[6] who was the first dynasty of Sumeria (via Phoenicia) of the fourth millennium BCE.[7]

Another artifact from Sumerian culture,[3][4] 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, divinator, magician, or seer.[4]

Neo-Sumeria

There is some suggestion people of this era knew of, and were experiencing dreams as, portents and sources for divination.[8] The Neo-Sumerian period was from circa the years 2100 to 2000 BCE.[9]

Babylonia

Most of the extant material showing evidence of divination practice are from the 7th century BCE [10] and accordingly from Babylonian culture, which dates from 1850 BCE and later.[3]

The so-called Sumerian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh has the mother of Gilgamesh interpreting a dream of Gilgamesh (a portent of the advent of Enkidu).[8]

Development

Divination practice evolved through time from abductive positions to reckonings by virtue of an a priori, and a tendency to make generalizations about causes.[11][12]

Classification

Two types existed, divine and human.[1] Mesopotamian diviners most often committed acts of divination by way of a liver, or by way of observations of the sky.[13]

Another difference is delineated by Bottéro, of two types of divination, both divine, but one artificial and the other natural, with 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 where-by direct inspired communication occurs from god to human.[14]

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.[1]

Divine

Study of portents from gods was vital within Mesopotamia throughout the entire time of the place.[15] The gods Šamaš and Adad were associated most closely to divination, with Šamaš connected to divination to make decision, and Adad for oracles and omens.[16]

Celestial

Celestial divination was made for the purposes of the king and the state.[10] Diviners observed the sun of the sky and the stars of the night sky, which they knew as šıṭır samé , or, šıṭır šamāmī , or, šıṭır burūmē (writing of the firmament [17]). These three things refer to they're thought of the stars of the sky (presumably in only of an understanding of the night sky) to be heavenly writing.[13][18] This type of divination, by way of the celestial, was one of three related celestial sciences of Babylon, including also astronomy and horoscopy.[17]

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.[17]

Impetration

Impetration is a type of divination which involved a diviner asking a deity to control a medium for the diviner to foretell the future. Mediums might include smoke, lots, or drops of oil in, or on, water.[10]

Human

Divination by way of deductive thought, which is divination where-by people understood the significance of forms and, or, changes to a medium as showing and revealing a truth, is attested to within Old Babylonia, at a date of 1950 BCE[1][2]

Hepatoscopy

Divination of this type involved using the liver, and possibly additionally the gall-bladder.[19]

Examination of the internal organs to make predictions is known as extispicy.[15][16][20]

Extant sources reveal individuals were restricted from using extispicic means by a prohibitive cost for the performance of this divination, royal members and nobles were mostly the only ones able to afford to know the future by this means.[16]

Concrete extant sources for knowledge of hepatoscopy is models of divined livers.[21][22]

The beginnings of hepatoscopic practice and belief is within a time of during the third millennium BCE [22]

Practice

To make hepatoscopic predictions, animals were slaughtered (Oppenheim). Predictions were made on observation of any kind of abnormality within the organ, which might be atrophy, hypertrophy, displacement, or any type of unusual marking within the organ.[16]

To make predictions, diviners had these two things to use to aid their making of a divinatory statement; lists of predictions and clay models made of livers used in previous predictions.[22]

Belief

The liver was thought of within the culture of Mesopotamia as being the centre of thought and feeling.[22]

Physiognomics

Study of the human body and foretelling of an individuals fate from this study is known as physiognomics. Diviners (or perhaps others associated) gave texts to others to ensure these texts were with the proceeding generation, in a chain of passings of material occurring for a period of nearly two millennia.[23]

Physiognomic divination omens, in the first extant recorded, date from a period 2000 - 1600 BCE [23]

Dream interpretation

The Mesopotamian dream-interpretator was known as ša'il(t)u.[8]

Writing

Literature containing Babylonian divination very often doesn't show contents within introductories which any reader might use to know the contents of the text.[23]

Enūma Anu Enlil is a text of conclusions of divination.[13]

Šumma alammdimmǔ is a series of omens made by physiognomics dating to the close of the second millennium BCE They are upon twenty-seven tablets.[23]

History of study

The study of divination [24] within Babylonian culture [25] belonds to the discipline of Assyriology and began in earnest sometime during the decade of the 1870s.[24]

See also

Mesopotamian prayer

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 J. Bottéro; Z. Bahrani (June 1995). Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. University of Chicago Press,. p. 125. ISBN 0226067270. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  2. 1 2 D.R. Brown. Astral Divination in the Context of Mesopotamian Divination, Medicine, Religion, Magic, Society, and Scholarship. published by the International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM 25 (2006): 69-126. Retrieved 2015-12-21.(p.70 & 71)
  3. 1 2 3 The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. Sumer - Ancient region, Iraq. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  4. 1 2 3 4 L.A. Waddell CB, CIE, F.L.S., L.L.D, M.Ch., I.M.S. RAI, F.R.A.S (2013). The Indo-Sumerian Seals Deciphered - Discovering Sumerians of Indus Valley as Phoenicians, Barats, Goths & Famous Vedic Aryans 3100-2300 B.C. Read Books Ltd. p. 107. ISBN 1473391288. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  5. ↑ C. Preston (University of Swansea) (2009). The Rise of Man in the Gardens of Sumeria: A Biography of L.A. Waddell. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 1845193156. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  6. ↑ L. A. Waddell (2013-04-16). The Indo-Sumerian Seals Deciphered - Discovering Sumerians of Indus Valley as Phoenicians, Barats, Goths & Famous Vedic Aryans 3100-2300 B.C. Read Books Ltd. ISBN 1473391288. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  7. ↑ L. Waddell (2013). The Aryan Origin of the Alphabet - Disclosing the Sumero-Phoenician Parentage of our Letters Ancient and Modern. Read Books Ltd. ISBN 1447481739.
  8. 1 2 3 F.H. Cryer (University of Copenhagen) (1994). Divination in Ancient Israel and Its Near Eastern Environment: A Socio-historical Investigation. A&C Black. p. 157. ISBN 1850753539. Retrieved 2015-12-27.Issue 142 of Journal for the study of the Old Testament: Supplement series
  9. ↑ J. Heise (1995-01-06). Akkadian language. Netherlands Institute for Space Research. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
  10. 1 2 3 F. Rochberg (November 2010). Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World. Magic in History. Penn State Press. p. 169. ISBN 0271046007. Retrieved 2015-12-20.
  11. ↑ G. Manetti (March 1993). Theories of the Sign in Classical Antiquity. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253112575. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  12. ↑ Oxford Dictionary [Retrieved 2015-12-17]
  13. 1 2 3 A. Winitzer (University of Notre Dame). Writing and Mesopotamian divination: The case of alternative interpretation. Journal of Cuneiform Studies Vol. 63 (2011), pp. 77-94, Published by American Schools of Oriental Research DOI: 10.5615/jcunestud.63.0077. JSTOR 10.5615/jcunestud.63.0077.
  14. ↑ U.S. Koch (1995). Mesopotamian Astrology: An Introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian Celestial Divination. Carsten Nieburh Institute Publications. 19. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 8772892870. Retrieved 2015-12-20.
  15. 1 2 A. Annus. Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (PDF). University of Chicago 2010. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  16. 1 2 3 4 A.A. Orlov (2005). The Enoch-Metatron Tradition. Texts and studies in ancient Judaism. 107. Mohr Siebeck. p. 31. ISBN 3161485440. Retrieved 2015-12-20.(A.A. Orlov references L. Oppenheim - Ancient Mesopotamia portrait of a dead civilization)
  17. 1 2 3 Rochberg, F. (2010). In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian Celestial Divination and Its Legacy. Volume 6 of Ancient Magic and Divination. BRILL. p. 304. ISBN 9004183892. Retrieved 2015-12-20.(Rochberg references A. Livingstone & Wayne Horowitz, p.304, p.1 - "...three related..." )
  18. ↑ Arnold, W.T. (July 2012). Let us Go up to Zion: Essays in Honour of H. G. M. Williamson on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Brill. p. 340. ISBN 9004226583. Retrieved 2015-12-20.(source: "sun of the sky")
  19. ↑ Nemet-Nejat, K.R. (2002). Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. The Greenwood Press "Daily life through history". Hendrickson Publishers. ISBN 1565637127. Retrieved 2015-12-21.
  20. ↑ definition published by The Free Dictionary [Retrieved 2015-12-20]
  21. ↑ Burkert, W.; Pinder, M.E. (1995). The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Issue 5 of Revealing antiquity. Harvard University Press. p. 48. ISBN 067464364X. Retrieved 2015-12-20.
  22. 1 2 3 4 B. Nicolas. Department of Near Eastern Antiquities. published by the Louvre. Retrieved 2015-12-20.
  23. 1 2 3 4 Popović, Mladen (2007). Reading the Human Body: Physiognomics and Astrology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic-Early Roman Period Judaism. Studies of the Texts of the Desert of Judah. 67. published by Brill. p. 72. ISBN 9004157174. Retrieved 2015-12-20.(Popović references F. Kraus & B. Böch > "texts of nearly two millennia")
  24. 1 2 U.S. Koch (2000). Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzāzu, Padānu and Pān Tākalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Aššurbanipal's Library. Publications Series. Museum Tusculanum Press. p. 14. ISBN 8772896205. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
  25. ↑ The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. Babylonia - Ancient region, Mesopotamia. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2015-12-26.
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