Mesopotamian divination wasdivination within theMesopotamian period.
Perceptual elements utilized in the practice of a divinatory technique included theastronomical (stars andmeteorites),weather and thecalendar, 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]
The earliest evidence for practice is (dating is true to this article) from the fourth millennia B.C. (Sumeria), 2100 to 2000 BC (Neo-Sumeria) and 7th century BC (Babylonia), except for circa 2100 via the BabylonianEpic of Gilgamesh.
The area of land known asSumer, within Mesopotamia, had a settled population within the5th millennia BCE.[3]
A seal fromSumer, (ofMudgala,[4]Lord ofEdin,Minister toUruas[5]) shows the word Azu, which meant water-divinator (lit. water knower), and additionally, physician.[4] Lord Mudgala was the son ofUruas the Khad,[6] who was thefirst dynasty of Sumeria (viaPhoenicia) of thefourth millennium BCE.[7]
Another artifact fromSumerian 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, diviner, magician, or seer.[4]
There is some suggestion people of this era knew of, and were experiencing,dreams as portents and sources for divination.[8] TheNeo-Sumerian period was from circa the years 2100 to 2000 BC.[9]
Most of the extant material showing evidence of divination practice are from the 7th century BCE[10] and accordingly fromBabylonian culture, which dates from 1850 BCE and later.[3]
TheSumerian version of theEpic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100[11]) has the mother of Gilgamesh interpreting a dream of Gilgamesh (a portent of the advent ofEnkidu).[8]
Divination practice evolved through time fromabductive positions to reckonings by virtue of ana priori, and a tendency to make generalizations about causes.[12][13]
Two types of divination existed in Mesopotamia, divine and human.[1] Mesopotamian diviners most often used aliver for divination, or else by observing thesky.[14]
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.[15]
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 ascience.[1]
Study of portents from gods was vital within Mesopotamia throughout the entire time of its existence.[16] The godsŠamaš andAdad were associated most closely with divination, Šamaš related to divination indecisions, and Adad fororacles andomens.[17]
Celestial divination was conducted for the purposes of the king and the state.[10]Diviners observed the sun by day and the stars of thenight sky, which they knew as šıṭır samé , or, šıṭır šamāmī , or, šıṭır burūmē (writing of thefirmament[18]). These three things refer to their thought of the stars of the sky interpreted asheavenly writing.[14][19] By way of the celestial, this type of divination was one of Babylon's three related celestial sciences, along withastronomy andhoroscopy.[18]
The descriptions šıṭır šamê and šıṭırti šamāmī are found sometimes withinNeo-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.[18]
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.[10]
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 withinOld Babylonia, at a date of 1950 BCE[1][2]
Divination of this type involved using theliver, and possibly additionally thegall-bladder.[20]
Examinining internal organs to make predictions is known asextispicy.[16][17][21]
Extant sources reveal individuals were restricted from using extispicic means by a prohibitive cost for the performance of this divination so thatroyal members andnobles were mostly the only ones able to afford to know the future by this means.[17]
Existing sources for knowledge of hepatoscopy are clay models of divined livers.[22][23]
Hepatoscopic practice and belief began during the third millennium BCE.[23] The practice is referred to in theHebrew Bible inEzekiel 21:21.
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.[23]
Hepatoscopic predictions were made on the entrails of slaughtered animals (Oppenheim) by observing any kind of abnormality within the organ, such asatrophy,hypertrophy, displacement, or any type of unusual marking.[17]
In Mesopotamian culture, theliver was thought of as being the centre ofthought andfeeling.[23]
Study of the human body and foretelling of an individual's fate from this study is known asphysiognomics. Diviners (or perhaps associated others) made and circulated these texts to successive generations, handing down knowledge for nearly two millennia.[24]
Physiognomic divination omens, in the first extant recorded, date from a period 2000 - 1600 BCE[24]
The Mesopotamian dream interpreter was known as ša'il(t)u.[8]
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 KingEsarhaddon in the early 7th century BCE.[25]
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.[24]
Enūma Anu Enlil is a text ofconclusions of divination.[14]
Šumma alammdimmǔ is a series of omens made by physiognomics dating to the close of the second millennium BCE. They are inscribed upon 27clay tablets.[24]
The study of divination[26] within Babylonian culture[27] belongs to the discipline ofAssyriology and began in earnest sometime during the decade of the 1870s.[26]
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