Before Tea Leaves: Divination in Ancient Babylonia

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Babylonian Liver Omens: The Chapters Manzazu, Padanu and Pan Takalti of the Babylonian Extispicy Series Mainly from Aššurbanipal’s Library (Ulla Koch-Westenholz CNI Publications 25) (Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of Copenhagen, Museum Tusculam Press, 2000), 543 pp. + 49 plates, $100 The administration was determined to go to war, but it lacked the necessary public support. Fortunately there was timely intelligence, especially from southern Iraq, that victory was assured. Am I referring to the CIA and Washington in 2003 C.E.? No, this is Nineveh in 652–648 B.C.E., the administration was headed by King Ashurbanipal, […]

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Endnotes

Compare Ivan Starr, Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politic in Sargonid Assyria (State Archives of Assyria 4, 1990), especially pp. 187–199, 255–257; and Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars (State Archives of Assyria 10, 1993), pp. 253–270.

On the frequent references to receiving a “firm yes” (annu k¦¯nu) in extispicy, see Starr, Queries, p. xvi; for a different view, see Cornelis van Dam, Then Urim and Thummim: a Means of Revelation in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), especially pp. 197–214.

Ulla Jeyes, “Divination as a Science in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux 32 (1991–1992), pp. 23–41, especially p. 23.

Found on p. 283, line 17 of the book under review; see also note 702 for a list of these from other divination series.