Mesopotamian divination was

divination Divination (from Latin ''divinare'', 'to foresee, to foretell, to predict, to prophesy') is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic, standardized process or ritual. Used in various forms throughout history ...

within the Mesopotamian period. Perceptual elements utilized in the practice of a divinatory technique included the

astronomical Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxie ...

(

stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ...

and

meteorites A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object e ...

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...

and the

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a phys ...

, 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. Magic was used to counter a negative fate foretold by divination.

Dating and development

The earliest evidence for practice is (''dating is true to this article'') from the fourth millennia B.C. (

Sumeria Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles ...

), 2100 to 2000 BC ( Neo-Sumeria) and 7th century BC (

Babylonia Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled stat ...

), except for circa 2100 via the Babylonian

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins wi ...

Sumer

The area of land known as

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...

, within Mesopotamia, had a settled population within the 5th millennia BCE. A seal from

, (of '' Mudgala,'' ''Lord of Edin,'' ''Minister to Uruas'' ) shows the word Azu, which meant water-divinator (lit. water knower), and additionally, physician. Lord Mudgala was the son of Uruas the Khad, who was the first dynasty of Sumeria (via

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their hist ...

) of the fourth millennium BCE. 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.

Neo-Sumerian

There is some suggestion people of this era knew of, and were experiencing,

dreams A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, altho ...

as portents and sources for divination.''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.

Babylonia

Most of the extant material showing evidence of divination practice are from the 7th century BCE and accordingly from Babylonian culture, which dates from 1850 BCE and later. The Sumerian version of the

(circa 2100 ) has the mother of Gilgamesh interpreting a dream of Gilgamesh (a portent of the advent of

Enkidu Enkidu ( sux, ''EN.KI.DU10'') was a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, wartime comrade and friend of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Their exploits were composed in Sumerian poems and in the Akkadian ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', writt ...

Development

Divination practice evolved through time from abductive positions to reckonings by virtue of an ''

a priori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...

'', and a tendency to make generalizations about causes.

Classification

Two types of divination existed in Mesopotamia, divine and human. Mesopotamian diviners most often used a

liver The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it ...

for divination, or else by observing the sky. 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. 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 Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

Divine

Study of portents from gods was vital within Mesopotamia throughout the entire time of its existence. The gods

Šamaš Utu (dUD "Sun"), also known under the Akkadian name Shamash, ''šmš'', syc, ܫܡܫܐ ''šemša'', he, שֶׁמֶשׁ ''šemeš'', ar, شمس ''šams'', Ashurian Aramaic: 𐣴𐣬𐣴 ''š'meš(ā)'' was the ancient Mesopotamian sun god. ...

and

Adad Hadad ( uga, ), Haddad, Adad ( Akkadian: 𒀭𒅎 '' DIM'', pronounced as ''Adād''), or Iškur ( Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BC ...

were associated most closely with divination, Šamaš related to divination in decisions, and Adad for

oracles An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The word ' ...

and

omens An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient times, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages fr ...

Celestial

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 The night sky is the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon. Natural light sources in a night sky inclu ...

, which they knew as šıṭır samé , or, šıṭır šamāmī , or, šıṭır burūmē (writing of the

firmament In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during his creation of the world to divide the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear. The concept was adopted into the subsequent ...

). These three things refer to their thought of the stars of the sky interpreted as ''heavenly writing''. By way of the celestial, this type of divination was one of Babylon's three related celestial sciences, along with

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, gala ...

and horoscopy. The descriptions šıṭır šamê and šıṭırti šamāmī are found sometimes within

Neo-Babylonian The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC and bein ...

royal inscriptions in special reference to those temples thought of a beautiful in a way of those temples being (lit.) ''like the heavenly writing''.(Rochberg references A. Livingstone & Wayne Horowitz, p.304, p.1 - "...three related..." )

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. Media might include smoke, lots, or drops of oil in, or on, water.

Human

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(p.70 & 71)

Hepatoscopy

Divination of this type involved using the

, and possibly additionally the gall-bladder. Examinining internal organs to make predictions is known as extispicy.definition
published by The Free Dictionary etrieved 2015-12-20/ref> Extant sources reveal individuals were restricted from using extispicic means by a prohibitive cost for the performance of this divination so that

royal Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ...

members and

nobles Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteris ...

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. Hepatoscopic practice and belief began during the third millennium BCE. The practice is referred to in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Ezekiel 21:21.

=Practice

= 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 Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include mutations (which can destroy the gene to build up the organ), poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply ...

hypertrophy Hypertrophy is the increase in the volume of an organ or tissue due to the enlargement of its component cells. It is distinguished from hyperplasia, in which the cells remain approximately the same size but increase in number.Updated by Linda J. ...

, displacement, or any type of unusual marking.(A.A. Orlov references L. Oppenheim - ''Ancient Mesopotamia portrait of a dead civilization'')

=Belief

= In Mesopotamian culture, the

was thought of as being the centre of

thought In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to conscious cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, a ...

and

feeling Feelings are subjective self-contained phenomenal experiences. According to the ''APA Dictionary of Psychology'', a feeling is "a self-contained phenomenal experience"; and feelings are "subjective, evaluative, and independent of the sensations ...

Physiognomics

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.(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

Dream interpretation

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

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 Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon ( Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his ...

in the early 7th century BCE.

Literature

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 Enuma Anu Enlil ( ,'' The Assyrian Dictionary'', volume 7 (I/J) – ''inūma'', The Oriental Institute, Chicago 1960, s. 160. ''When he gods Anu and Enlil'' .., abbreviated EAE, is a major series of 68 or 70 tablets (depending on the recension) ...

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.

History of study

The study of divination within Babylonian culture belongs to the discipline of

Assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...

and began in earnest sometime during the decade of the 1870s.

References

{{Reflist Divination Astronomical myths Mesopotamian religion