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Outline

What for?

Where to start with?

Divination in Third Millennium BCE (?)

Sumer

Omen tradition: ubiquitous

Babylon

Assyria

Franco D’Agostino

Sapienza – Università di Roma

Armando Bramanti

CCHS – CSIC, Madrid

Somehow spanning through three millennia

Maul 2013, Die Wahrsagekunst im alten Orient. Zeichen des Himmels und der Erde

  • What is it for?

  • Divination & medicine

  • Divination & law

  • The sources

  • Conclusions (?)

A definition

Once upon a time...

Lu2-diĝir-ra

The art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers.

Merriam-Webster English Dictionary

Rome, September 23rd - 24th 2020, Istituto Svizzero

Back to the hepatoscopy

Divination & medicine

Hepatoscopy in Sumerian III millennium?

Divination & law

more generally extispicy: among the most attested divinatory methods in later times

maš2-šu-gid2-gid2 dadag-ga-me-en

giri3-gen-na inim uzu-ga-ka {d}nin-tud-bi ga2-e-me-en

To find omen series...

...let's look for tukum-bi/šumma clauses

a-zu(5) / asû

maš-šu-gid2-gid2 / āšipu

The sources

ILLNESS

I am a ritually pure diviner,

I am Nintu of the written lists of omens!

Šulgi B, ll. 131-132

In third millennium:

legal texts

(starting from late 3rd millennium)

literary texts

lexical lists

administrative texts

repeatedly denied

(e.g. P. Michalowski, S. Richardson)

OMEN

Laws of Ur-Namma

Administrative texts

Literary texts

Lexical lists

Letter of Ibbi-Sin to Puzur-Numušda

In Ur III

lu2-maš2-šu-gid2

attempt to create a whole new vocabulary in Sumerian (Michalowski 2011)

(lu2-)maš-šu-gid2-gid2 ≠ later barû

the "diviner" is often connected with deliveries of goods

"the one who reaches (lit. stretches out) the hand (in)to the goat"

these deliveries often imply other ovines

not a third millennium text!

cf. Crisostomo 2018, Sumerian Divination

(11 texts from Kassite through Hellenistic times)

possibly the base for the textual structure of later Babylonian divination series

Lu2 E (Ebla)

Lu2 C (Fara and Abu Ṣalabikh)

in Drehem it often occurs in the same contexts of the e2-muhaldim (the kitchen)

Šulgi B

maš2-šu-gid2-gid2 dadag-ga-me-en

giri3-gen-na inim uzu-ga-ka {d}nin-tud-bi ga2-e-me-en

giri3-gen-na = "procedures" ≠ omen collections

Before Ur III

I am a ritually pure diviner,

I am Nintu of the written lists of omens!

maybe performed extispicy, but no mention of texts / compendia (Richardson 2006 and 2010)

lu2-maš2-šu-gid2 together with sipa udu, gu2-šu-du8, muhaldim etc.

the expression maš2 šu-gid2-da is attested a few times in ED IIIb Umma, often in connection with other animals deliveries

ED IIIa Fara and Abu Ṣalabikh

is the lu2-maš2-šu-gid2 actually a barû?

few lines mentioning maš2-šu-gid2 (e.g. OIP 99, 144)

CURE (+ EXORCISM)

what does the compound verb šu--gid2 mean?

poorly understood texts

how was a liver omen interpreted without a series?

šu--gid2 as a synonym of šu--ti = mahāru, "to receive" as opposed to ba, "to offer" (cf. Karahashi 2000)

SF 47 (Lu2 C)

...and not only omens!

Not only livers...

Abundance of incantations in the early Mesopotamian literature

Extispicy is only one of multiple divination methods and most probably not the oldest!

a-zu(5) / asû

maš-šu-gid2-gid2 / āšipu

ILLNESS

Animal behavior

OMEN

Last step in the operative chain of the divinatory practice

Gudea Cyl A: goats (and other animals) interact with the environment and provide omens

CURE (+ EXORCISM)

+ herbs, resin, and smoke

Conclusions (?)

udu-i3 gukkal maš2 niga ensi2-ke4

{munus}ešgar ĝiš nu-zu kuš-ba mi-ni-durunx

the ruler made a fattened sheep, a fat-tail sheep, and a grain-fed kid

rest on hides of a virgin she-goat

Divination as an important aspect of the early Mesopotamian Weltanschauung, too

Our sources only highlight bits of the operative chain of the divinatory practice

Incubation

Some form of extispicy was probably already practiced in the third millennium

as a non-established practice

Gudea Cyl A: Gudea receives instructions to build the Eninnu

+ prayers, rites, and positioning

three dreams (ma-mu/maš-ĝi6)

More in-depth lexical studies bear the potential to shed new light on early Mesopotamian divination

presence of an interpreter (ensi/ensi3) who explains the dreams (Nanshe)

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