Research Program

Scientific Background

The research will investigate the technical language of Babylonian divination. While much progress has been made in the last twenty or so years (Starr 1983; Meyer 1987; Durand 1988; Jeyes 1989; Leiderer 1990; Starr 1990; Koch 2000; Glassner 2012; Maul 2013; De Vos 2014; Koch 2015; Winitzer 2017), crucial terms in divination literature still evade understanding or sense and therefore demand a re-investigation. Additionally, the publication of new texts, some of which were hardly previously known (in particular George 2013, but also Heeßel 2012), makes it imperative to embark on a new and innovative study of the technical terms employed by this textual genre. The research proposes a novel interpretative key for approaching the unknown or misunderstood technical terms: a system of metonymy or metaphor between the technical terms of the omen sentence, which sees a negotiation between tenor and vehicle. The research project will provide new paths to explore the language of divination, a textual genre of the utmost importance in the social and cultural life of Mesopotamian cultures and the Cuneiform world for a period of over a thousand years.

The most famous library of the ancient Near East was the Library of Ashurbanipal at the Assyrian capital, Nineveh. It remains very difficult to account for the entire Nineveh collection of texts which numbers into twenty-six thousand tablets and tablet fragments. A limited study of the Nineveh collection of Babylonian tablets in the Babylonian script includes almost 1,600 literary texts out of some 3,600 Babylonian tablets. Almost 50% of these literary texts are divination materials. Within this corpus, 14% are extispicy compositions. The second largest group includes religious compositions related to the disciplines of the kalûtu, ‘lamentation’, and āšipūtu, ‘exorcism’ (Fincke 2003–2004). The conclusion is that the subject of divination was of utmost importance to the king and his court for political objectives (Frahm 2004; Frahm 2011a: 277).

The crucial importance of divination is also reflected in day-to-day documents of the royal court from which we learn how the king interacted with the diviners at his service, who were meant to offer advice and counseling on the basis of their knowledge (Parpola 1983; Robson 2011; Pongratz-Leisten 1999; ead. 2015; Radner 2011; Frahm 2011a). These were professionals who were trained in their art, mastering the disciplines held in their families for generations. Their knowledge is reflected in the letters, as well as other scholarly texts, which they wrote for their employers, the Neo-Assyrian kings. Their project of collecting knowledge was put to the service of the one true scholar, Ashurbanipal himself (Pongratz-Leisten 2015: 360–378, esp. 377; Fincke 2003–2004: 120–122).

The situation at Neo-Assyrian Nineveh for which we have the best documentation, can be assumed for other historical situations, for which we have fewer sources, such as the Amorite kings of the Old Babylonian period (Richardson 2010), the Kassite period (Finkel 1988; Heeßel 2011a; id. 2011b) and Babylonia under the Persians and later the Seleucids (Clancier 2009; Stevens 2013).

Contemporary scholarship places the production of omen literature (and not only extispicy but also other types, chiefly among them astrological omens) at the center of the power structures of the ancient Near East. In recent years, scholars have focused on royal decision-making and have repeatedly demonstrated how much depended on the constant upkeeping of the art of divination as a tool of state craft and politics (e.g., Robson 2011a; ead. 2011b; Radner 2011). A feature of society, that may look to us arcane and useless was very much central to the life and religion of the ancient Mesopotamians and their neighbours. Therefore, the subject matter of this research stands at the heart of understanding what cuneiform culture is about.

The need for knowing the future is universal, but the ways of divulging it are culturally specific. In Mesopotamia, the oracle question, ‘What will the future hold for me?’ is primarily revealed through four types of divination techniques, which are: 1.) astronomical omens (Enūma Anu Enlil; Koch 2015: 163–182); 2.) terrestrial omens that collect the ominous features of the urban and country-side environment (šumma ālu; Koch 2015: 233–258; Freedman 1998, 2006 and 2017); 3.) omens regarding the form and features of rejected foetuses of man and beast (šumma izbu; De Zorzi 2014; Koch 2015: 265–273); and, 4.) extispicy (Bārûtu; Koch 2000, 2005 and 2015: 83–122). The present research proposal is interested in the fourth technique: extispicy. This refers to collecting omens based on the observation and recording of the inner body parts of the sacrificial animal, which in Mesopotamia is almost always a male sheep.

In a special ritual proceeding––the Extispicy Ritual––which culminated with the sacrifice of the sheep, the liver of the sacrificial animal was granted an ominous meaning. The largest organ in the body, and hence of obvious importance, was situated deep in the body, hidden by other organs. Once exposed to the eye, it revealed its dark secret: a divine sign sent by the gods. The liver was considered to be a tablet inscribed with the words of the gods, especially the god Šamaš, the divine judge and decreer of fates. It was he who wrote the verdict of his judgement for the client on the liver and other internal organs which are located inside the sheep (The Prayer of Šamaš-šūm-ukīn, cited by Steinkeller 2005: 15–16):

ina libbi immeri tašaṭṭar šīra tašakkan dīna

‘Inside the sheep you (i.e., the god Šamaš) write (the verdict), (in) the flesh you place (your) judgement.’

Hence the purpose of extispicy was to reveal the liver and other organs in order to view and “read” the signs, so as to gain understanding of what the future holds for the client, especially when his or her god was not placated.

But how was the actual omen read and understood? At the root of Babylonian divination literature, to describe it succinctly, lies a binary structure of a positive field and negative field, very often, labelled as the directions right and left (Koch 2015: 12–15 and 82). Generally, this binary structure holds by tenet that the right field is the pars familiaris, or ‘my side’ and the left field is the pars hostilis or ‘my enemy’s side’: a favourable sign on ‘my side’ is a good omen for the client but a bad omen for the enemy. And a favourable sign on ‘my enemy’s side’ is a bad omen for the client but a good omen for the enemy. However, a multitude of considerations could upset this neat division, and each sign or omen had to be evaluated separately: colours, sizes, and directions influenced the value of the sign (Maul 2013: 56–57 and 101–102). The sum of positive signs against the sum of negative signs is what determined the outcome of the oracle question. Consider this set of omens (YOS 10 33 iv 42–46; adapted from Winitzer 2017: 87):

šumma ina imitti ubānim šīlum šakin miqitti ummānika

šumma ina šumēl ubānim šīlum šakin miqitti nakrim

‘If in the right side of the ‘Finger’ (a feature of the liver) a hole is located, the fall of my army.’

‘If in the left side of the ‘Finger’ a hole is located, the fall of the enemy.’

In this couplet of omens, the right-left principle is at work. A negative sign––a hole in right side of one of the liver parts––on my side is bad news, but on the opposite side, is bad news for my adversary, hence positive for me.

The way that the omens were formulated remained constant throughout the entire corpus of Babylonian divination literature regardless of the genre, place or time period of the text in question. The omen sign was articulated by a bipartite conditional sentence, ‘If...then’: the first sentence, called by us nowadays the protasis, is opened by šumma, ‘If’: it is concerned with the description of the observed sign. The second sentence, the apodosis, follows the first sentence directly: it gives the result or interpretation of the sign. The interpretation is either ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, with the exception of an indication of an ambiguous omen (by special terminology).

The relation of the apodosis to the protasis is not always easy to understand: the apodosis can be seen as an interpretative statement of the protasis, sparked by a variety of associations (analogic, verbal, symbolic, metaphoric), obviously thought of as necessary and not arbitrary for the diviner (Koch 2015: 14, 83; Winitzer 2017, with many examples). I give two examples taken from omen observations of the sacrificial sheep (YOS 10 47 §§ 10 and 13):

šumma immerum isāšu ira’ubā urbāšum eli ummanī ima[qqut]

‘If a sheep – its jaws quiver, shivers of fear will fa[ll] upon my army.’

šumma immerum šinnīšu ikaṣṣaṣ aššat awīlim iniakma ˹i˺[na] bītim uṣṣi

‘If a sheep gnashes its teeth, the man’s wife will fornicate and she will leave the household.’

We see in the first omen an analogy (body part quivers > shivers of fear) and sound association (alliteration between the elements of the protasis and the apodosis). In the second omen we find a symbolic association between the protasis and the apodosis (exposing teeth > baring of the genitals).

On certain occasions, as in the examples brought above, we can understand the relationship between the protasis and the apodosis, but there are times when the link is not clear, and indeed, may not have been clear to the diviner himself, who would have resorted to the ancient commentaries for a learned explanation (Frahm 2011a). Modern scholarship has made great strides in understanding the relationship between both parts of the omen sentence, but much remains to be done, as will be explained below.

As previously noted, the main focus of the extispicy was the liver organ (amūtu or têrtu). It was usually not considered as a whole, but as a body part made up of many components, each worthy of a detailed examination down to the very minutest of details (Meyer 1987; Jeyes 1989; Leiderer 1990; Starr 1990; Koch 2000; Maul 2013; De Vos 2014).

How was the liver “read”? The liver was always examined on its visceral (or internal) surface. The topography of the visceral surface was the outcome of the impressions made on the organ by the stomach parts and the kidneys. Once turned on its back to be “read”, the liver was imagined to be a model of the topography of one’s kingdom, complete with a river, path and palace gate, as the names of its parts testify. Hence, it was read as a sort of map of an imagined territory. The diaphragmatic surface, a smooth and even surface, was never examined. The liver was oriented with its ventral side (bottom) facing away from the viewer and the dorsal side (top) facing towards the viewer. The left side of the liver (lobus sinister) became the right side and the right side (lobus dexter) the left side. However, because the liver was rotated when read, the left-side and right-side (and top-bottom directions) for each area and zone were different: the inscribed clay liver models assist us, as they assisted the novice diviners of the ancient Near East, in determining the direction in which the observed area is to be “read” (Meyer 1987; De Vos 2014; above KUB 37.223, a 3D imaging of a clay liver model from Boǧazköy, courtesy of the Hittite Portal). It is to be mentioned that a few inscribed liver models where found in Hazor, thus demonstrating that the art of Babylonian divination travelled far and wide.

The uneven visceral surface of the liver was divided into areas, and within each area into zones. These areas, which nowadays can be identified with confidence with actual physical features of the sheep liver, were examined according to a fixed order, starting from the right-side and running counter-clockwise along the surface of the organ.

The first part of the liver to be examined was the naplaštum, ‘View’, also called manzāzu, ‘Position’ (a), an area identified with a groove on the left lobe of the liver. The absence of the manzāzu meant that the question put forth to the gods was rejected, because the personal god of the client was not present. The inspection followed with the padānu, ‘Path’ (b) and the pû ṭābu, ‘Good Words’ (c) (both identified with a top groove on the left lobe), the dānanu, ‘Strength’ (d) (the round ligament), and the bāb ekalli, ‘Palace Gate’ (e) (the fissure or cleft that lodges the round ligament). The inspection continued with the šulmu, ‘Furrow’/‘Well Being’ (f) (the quadrate lobe). The gallbladder, called martu (g) (lit. ‘bitter’) is also viewed as part of the liver inspection, although it is a separate organ. After a few minor parts comes the ubānu, ‘Finger’ (h) (the caudate process), the nīru, ‘Yoke’ (i) (the impressio omasica) and the ṣibtu ‘Increment’ (j) (the processus papillaris).

The many parasites that infect the sheep liver leave their marks on its surface. The various marks all received a designation, and because they appeared to resemble scribblings they were actually imagined to look like actual (archaic) cuneiform signs to be “read” by the diviner (Frahm 2010; Maul 2013: 64, 75–77). The marks are called in the literature ‘fortuitous marks’ (Leiderer 1990: 32). The šīlu, ‘hole’, caused by parasites, appeared as an unfavourable sign on the naplaštum/manzāzu. Tapeworms may also infect the liver and cause white spots on its surface, which were called pūṣu. The mark called diḫḫu/ṣiḫḫu, ‘pustule’ was also a mark caused by parasites. The erištu, ‘Forrow/Request’, was a mark, which could bring about positive apodoses, so long as it was normally-sized and not dark. Another common mark was the kakku, ‘Weapon’: it was a peg-shaped mark in the shape of the (archaic) cuneiform sign kak.

The value of the marks (i.e., positive or negative) depended on which side of the zone they appeared and on their colour and texture. For example the ‘Weapon’ brought about apodoses concerned with war, while the ‘pustule’, because of being filled with fluids, invited apodoses dealing with rain. The areas, their zones, and the fortuitous marks were interpreted according to a complex system that still follows the rules articulated above. The duty of the diviner was to identify and correctly interpret the writings that the gods had inscribed on the organs and the various parts of the liver body.

Research Objectives and Expected Significance

The objective of the research is to investigate the technical language of extispicy in order to better understand the methods of interpretation undertaken by the diviner. While the methods of the interpretation of the liver are provided on occasion by ancient texts (the so-called Diviner’s Manual; Oppenheim 1974; and the collection of texts termed as ‘Secrets of the Diviner’; Koch 2015), for the most part, as in other realms of Mesopotamian knowledge, we hold no explicit book or tractate of theory that explains the principles of divinatory thought. These have to be divulged by modern scholarship. Many of the important principles for divination have been previously investigated in the past and we now have a good grasp of its working methods.

However, many of the technical terms are still unknown to us, even on the level of their lexical meaning, and their choice and function in omen literature remain obscure. The hypothesis presented here (see under Research Hypothesis) suggests a method which may enable a breakthrough in our understanding of these terms, and allow us to expose additional principles of interpretation at work in the art of extispicy.

The research objective will involve a variety of parameters for the study of the technical terms: lexical meaning; symbolic/metaphoric meanings; cryptographic writing; abbreviated logograms; etymology; and comparative historical linguistics. Each term will be isolated and studied without loosing its place in the general scheme of things, that is to say, its location upon the surface of the liver and other body parts. A diachronic view will not be abandoned: the research will demonstrate the dynamics of change in the use of the terms throughout time and according to various scribal and learned traditions. It will attempt to find an explanation for each change embedded in the scholarly tradition of Mesopotamia. It is important to state that the publication of many new texts reveals to us as never before a whole array of new logographic and other styles of writing which demand immediate attention. Consider here the new 16^th century Sealand Dynasty omen collections (George 2013, nos. 22–32) and the unknown divination techniques from Middle Bronze Age Tigunānu (George 2013, nos. 17–21; Appendix, nos. ii–iii). The first represents omen literature whose influence spread far and wide, as is only now beginning to be realized, while the latter represents divination traditions that are probably at home in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria. For the sake of illustration, the table below (on the basis of Westenholz 2015: 78–81) presents a few of the terms which we will study.

One of our chief problems is explaining the many logographic (or Sumerian) technical terms. There is still no explanation for the writing of zé for the gallbladder (no. 7) or for the writing me.ni for a part of the liver called ‘The Palace Gate’ (no. 2). The writing mi+ib.ḫi (no. 4) is an example of a new form found in the Sealand Dynasty omen texts that requires discussion. Some terms require a lexical interpretation (e.g, nos. 4, 12, 13). Other terms alternate between the protasis and apodosis, and consequently, their meanings may change (nos. 5, 6, 12, 14). A few words seem to be misfitting for anatomical terms on the liver surface (nos. 3, 10, 15). We are left in the dark about the mystery of numerical-crypto writing, that is to say, writing words with numbers (e.g., Finkel 2010). The most well-known are ‘15’, for writing ‘the right-side’ and ‘150’ for writing ‘the left-side’ (nos. 17, 18), but there are others.

We bring two examples to illustrate the potential of the research.

The gallbladder, usually called martu, literally, the ‘bitter one’, was associated with the king and kingship by force of the organ’s additional name rē’û(m) (written with the logogram sipa), ‘Shepherd’, typical of omens from Mari (Durand 1988; Jeyes 1989: 62–63; cf. Glassner 2005; George 2013: 35). Consider this example: šumma martum qaqqassa u išissa ṣabit šarrum ina ālišu libbašu ula iṭīab, ‘If the gallbladder—its head and its base are stuck, the king will not be satisfied in his own city’ (YOS 10 31 iii 13–19; Jeyes 1989: 63).

But why was the gallbladder ever termed so? We argue that the association is secondary and interpretative: the term rē’u originally meant *‘lung’, but it had migrated to the gallbladder because of the similar shape of the organ to the lung (Cohen 2003). The reason for this association was forgotten for all we know, especially since in Akkadian the word for lung is ḫašû. The homophonic word rē’û(m), ‘shepherd’, however, gave rise to the association with kingship, and caused the subsequent writing of the term for gallbladder with the logogram sipa (‘shepherd’ in Sumerian) (Jeyes 1989: 62–63). Hence our solution offers an explanation, otherwise far from evident, why the gallbladder was called rē’u, and hence associated with kingship.

Another interesting case of metonymy is the case of šulmu. The liver-part called šulmu is termed in the literature as the ‘Well-being’, and is identified with the lobus quadratus (see, however, De Vos 2013: 49–50). We assume, however, that the šulmu could have been named after a concrete object of the liver, like other parts, such as the padānu, ‘Path’, nīrum, ‘Yoke’, ṣibtum, ‘Increment’. We reach this assumption because in the oil omen collections, the šulmu refers to a visible formation of the oil on the surface of the water-bowl. It is usually translated as a ‘bubble’, but once the šulmu is represented on the liver models, it looks like a furrow, which indeed perhaps was the original meaning of the word, but which was eventually lost. Indeed Goetze (1947: 7, and n. 42) suggests an original root t-l-m, and cf. Hebrew תלם. Here are a few examples: šumma (šamnum) šulmam iddiamma u beli marṣum imât, ‘If (the oil) produces a ‘bubble’ and it dissolves, the sick man will die…’ (Pettinato 1966, vol. 2, Text 1, no. 32); šumma šulmu kīma naplašti u padāni šakin šulum napišti, ‘If the šulmu lies like the “Viewer” and the “Path”, wholesomeness’ (Heeßel 2012: 37, no. 1, ii, 49); and šumma ina kibir šulmi pallurtu nadât ina eqli šalmi haṭṭu ana ummāni imaqqut, ‘If a cross-shaped (incision) lies at the rim of the šulmu, terror will fall on the army in a safe area (Koch-westenholz 2000: 344, no. 64, pān takalti Tablet 6, l. 11).

For these two examples we have postulated an interpretative principle: metonymy on the basis of homophony. The treatment of other terms will of course demand different explanations and clarifications.

The objective, in sum, is to offer a comprehensive investigation of obscure terms of Babylonian extispicy, in order to advance our understanding of one of the most creative and culturally influential of all Mesopotamian textual genres––omen literature.

Expected Significance

The research undertaken will elucidate the working mechanisms of the technique of extispicy, in order to understand how it served the scholars and experts of Mesopotamia who interpreted the signs for their clients, the kings. We have illustrated above only some of the terms that yet have to be clarified or fully explained. It is expected that a full review of these terms will bare fundamental principles that underlay the interpretation of signs, thus significantly progressing our knowledge of the interpretative techniques used by the diviner. By explaining what remains obscure, the research contributes not only to the study of extispicy, but opens the door for explaining additional little understood terms in other divinatory fields, such as in astrology. It provides an opportunity to enrich our knowledge of Mesopotamian thought, in divination, as well as areas such as medicine and magic, ancient lexicography, and law and literature. Much of the tenets that figure in divination literature––such as word play, playful and cryptographic sign usage, aural and visual imagery, syllogistic logic, verbal association, and more––feature in other genres of the Mesopotamian intellectual world (e.g., recently van de Mieroop 2016). In addition, growing interest in the heritage of the ancient Near East among the divination traditions of later times (e.g., Furley & Gysembergh 2015; Eshel & Stern 2017) will surely benefit from our study.

Detailed Description of the Proposed Research

1) Working Hypothesis

The working hypothesis of the research project is as follows: the marks on the liver were actual visible marks named (as far as can be reconstructed) after concrete objects of the physical world. At times, the marks on the liver were also considered to be actual cuneiform signs, such as the signs hal or kak (Frahm 2011), which, due to the (partly) pictographic origin of the cuneiform writing systems, represented objects in the real world. These marks, as explained above, sparked the association with the predictions made in the apodoses of the omens. However, we can identify a phenomenon by which, through metonymy, indexes found in the apodosis, made their way, so to speak, back to the protasis. Formulated otherwise, the tenor of the metaphor finds itself as the vehicle (e.g, prot: gallbladder > apod: king/shepherd > prot. ‘shepherd’). This hypothesis (which need not explain all the cases of extispicy) will allow us to discover what lies in the associative force between the protasis and apodosis, which often remains obscure. The two examples introduced above (see b) are a concise demonstration of this working hypothesis.

2) Research Procedures and the Conditions for Conducting the Research

The conditions for conducting the research rely on the extant published materials of extispicy and related divination literature. There is evidence for over one-hundred Old Babylonian omen collections, containing altogether at the very least two-thousand omen entries (e.g., Goetze 1947; Nougayrol 1971; Jeyes 1989, etc.). Supplementing this rich corpus is a substantial group of extispicy reports, written by the experts during the course of their duties (for a survey, see Koch 2002). The rich documentation of divination literature following the Old Babylonian period is available through many reliable, recently published editions (e.g., Heeßel 2007; id. 2012; Koch 2000; ead. 2005; George 2013; De Zorzi 2014).

Upon need there will be access to unpublished materials, held in worldwide collections. Digital media make such sources easier to study through dedicated websites, such as CDLI [cdli.ucla.edu]; The British Museum Collection Online [britishmuseum.org]; and The Hittite Portal [hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/HPM]). Mention is to be made of great advancement in the publication of the textual genre of commentaries (Cuneiform Commentaries Project [ccp.yale.edu]). These texts are crucial for the interpretation of divination and other terms: they were interpretative means for the ancient scholar, and can serve as such for us (although we should not regard these compositions as scientific; Frahm 2011b; Gabbay 2016). Another very valuable project is the Geography of Knowledge (oracc.museum.upenn.edu/cams/gkab), which brings together scholarly materials, including divination and other technical texts, from 1^st millennium libraries in Sultantepe, Kalhu, and Uruk.

The research procedure will first assemble the data for a gazetteer of the topography of the liver. At the second stage, the input will be analysed in order to place the various terms on an imaginary map of the liver. We will use here 3D photographs of clay liver models from Hattuša/Boǧazköy, provided for us courtesy of the Hittite Portal; see above for a snapshot picture of one of the 3D images. This procedure will assist us in identifying the various marks and features of the liver with more precision. Once the map is populated with our terms we will tie them to their analogous/mirror terms in the prediction given in the apodosis of the omen. A synthetic overview of all the terms their meaning and function will consist of the penultimate stage of the research. The final stage will see us building an online interactive 3D model of the liver with its parts fully marked and linked to fuller explanations, diagrams and primary and secondary sources. This model, along with the gazetteer, will be available online for the academic community. The results of the research project will appear as articles, which will advance the discussion regarding the techniques of divination and the intellectual world of ancient Mesopotamia.

The research team will consist of one post-doctoral researcher and two MA students. The MA students will engage in active research on the project and write theses, which will be published as papers with the assistance of the senior team members. The post-doctoral researcher will work with the PI to establish the meaning of the terms under study and provide textual editions and commentaries for select texts. The team working together will compile the gazetteer, populate the liver map, and build the 3D liver model.

Note that the research rests on the PI’s previous scholarship and research of omen literature; see under 3) and 4) below. This ensures that precious time of preliminary research procedures (collecting materials, compiling data-bases and bibliographies) will not be wasted, as all of this has been already achieved.

In sum, all conditions for conducting this research are available. Thus, the objectives of the research proposal can be fully achieved within two years of funding.

3) Preliminary Results

Preliminary results have already been very promising. The PI has achieved the interpretation of particular sheep body parts used in various extispicy techniques (Cohen 2016; on the basis of a former ISF grant, no. 360/12): a rare bone type was interpreted (singaggarītu), another body part was crossed out from the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, P: 221 as a ghost word (*pasinnu). The PI and Dr N. Anor (Anor & Cohen 2018) have produced an important edition of oil omens from Hattuša in which its relationship to sky-watching and early astrology was demonstrated. A work-in-progress is now exploring one of the key terms in extispicy, the manzāzu. It will appear in the course of 2020. Additional studies into omen nomenclature by the PI are given below.

4) The Researcher’s Expertise and Experience

The PI’s monograph about an omen collection called šumma immeru, ‘If the Sheep’ (ca. 400pp.), which is concerned with omens taken at the time of the sheep’s sacrifice, during the Extispicy Ritual (Cohen, Forthcoming a) is soon to be printed. The PI has written extensively about the anatomical parts of sheep and humans (Cohen 2003, 2012, 2017, 2016, 2018, Forthcoming b). He has contributed an edition of a commentary to the Cuneiform Commentaries Project at Yale University (Cohen 2016). Apart from divination literature, he has written extensively about lexical lists, schooling in the western reaches of the cuneiform world, and the Hittite empire in Syria.