Aleuromancy is the use of
flour
Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...
for
divination
Divination () is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice. Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a should proceed by reading signs, ...
.
The word comes from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
''aleuron'', meaning flour, and ''manteia'', meaning divination.
Description
Divination with flour is attested in
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
tablets from the 2nd millennium BCE.
Flour was poured out in small heaps and the interpretation was based on the observation of their shapes and orientation.
In its original form, slips of paper containing words of warning would be baked inside of cakes or cookies, which would then be distributed to those wishing their fortunes to be told. Similarly, the Greeks would bake slips of paper with sentences on them inside of balls of flour, mix the balls nine times, and distribute them.
Modern
fortune cookie
A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chinese language, Chines ...
s are a variant on these forms of divination.
Another form of aleuromancy consisted of interpreting patterns of flour left in a bowl after a flour and water slurry had been mixed in it and poured away.
See also
*
Mola salsa
In Religion in ancient Rome, ancient Roman religion, ''mola salsa'' ("salted flour") was a mixture of Granularity, coarse-ground, toasted emmer flour and salt prepared by the Vestal Virgins and used in every official sacrifice. It was sprinkled on ...
, an ancient Roman religious use of flour
References
Divination
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