Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (Oriental Institute Seminars)

360 Pages·2010·3.13 MB·English

by  Amar Annus

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Divination anD interpretation
of signs in the ancient worlD
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Divination anD interpretation
of signs in the ancient worlD
edited by
AmAr Annus
with contributions by
Amar Annus, Francesca rochberg, James Allen, ulla susanne Koch,
Edward L. shaughnessy, niek Veldhuis, Eckart Frahm, scott B. noegel,
nils Heeßel, Abraham Winitzer, Barbara Böck, seth richardson,
Cynthia Jean, JoAnn scurlock, John Jacobs, and martti nissinen
THE OriEnTAL insTiTuTE OF THE uniVErsiTy OF CHiCAgO
OriEnTAL insTiTuTE sEminArs • numBEr 6
CHiCAgO • iLLinOis
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Library of Congress Control number: 2009943156
isBn-13: 978-1-885923-68-4
isBn-10: 1-885923-68-6
issn: 1559-2944
©2010 by The university of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Published 2010. Printed in the united states of America.
The Oriental Institute, Chicago
THE uniVErsiTy OF CHiCAgO
OriEnTAL insTiTuTE sEminArs • numBEr 6
Series Editors
Leslie schramer
and
Thomas g. urban
with the assistance of
Felicia Whitcomb
Publication of this volume was made possible through generous funding
from the Arthur and Lee Herbst research and Education Fund
Cover Illustration: Bronze model of a sheep’s liver indicating the seats of the deities. From Decima di
gossolengo, Piacenza. Etruscan, late 2nd–early 1st c. b.c. Photo credit: scala / Art resource, ny
Printed by Edwards Brothers, Ann Arbor, Michigan
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American national standard for
information services — Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library materials, Ansi Z39.48-1984.
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TABLE OF COnTEnTs
PrEFACE .............................................................. vii
inTrODuCTiOn
1. On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen sciences in the Ancient World ...... 1
Amar Annus, University of Chicago
sECTiOn OnE: THEOriEs OF DiVinATiOn AnD signs
2. “if P, then Q”: Form and reasoning in Babylonian Divination ................. 19
Francesca Rochberg, University of California, Berkeley
3. greek Philosophy and signs ........................................... 29
James Allen, University of Pittsburgh
4. Three strikes and you’re Out! A View on Cognitive Theory and the First-
millennium Extispicy ritual ........................................... 43
Ulla Susanne Koch, Independent Scholar
5. Arousing images: The Poetry of Divination and the Divination of Poetry ......... 61
Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago
6. The Theory of Knowledge and the Practice of Celestial Divination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Niek Veldhuis, University of California, Berkeley
sECTiOn TWO: HErmEnEuTiCs OF sign inTErPrETATiOn
7. reading the Tablet, the Exta, and the Body: The Hermeneutics of Cuneiform
signs in Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries and Divinatory Texts ...... 93
Eckart Frahm, Yale University
8. “sign, sign, Everywhere a sign”: script, Power, and interpretation in the
Ancient near East ................................................... 143
Scott B. Noegel, University of Washington
9. The Calculation of the stipulated Term in Extispicy ......................... 163
Nils P. Heeßel, University of Heidelberg
10. The Divine Presence and its interpretation in Early mesopotamian Divination ..... 177
Abraham Winitzer, University of Notre Dame
11. Physiognomy in Ancient mesopotamia and Beyond: From Practice to Handbook ... 199
Barbara Böck, CSIC, Madrid
sECTiOn THrEE: HisTOry OF sign inTErPrETATiOn
12. On seeing and Believing: Liver Divination and the Era of Warring states (ii) ..... 225
Seth F. C. Richardson, University of Chicago
13. Divination and Oracles at the neo-Assyrian Palace: The importance of
signs in royal ideology .............................................. 267
Cynthia Jean, Université Libre de Bruxelles, FNRS
14. Prophecy as a Form of Divination; Divination as a Form of Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
JoAnn Scurlock, Elmhurst College
15. Traces of the Omen series Åumma izbu in Cicero, De divinatione ............... 317
John Jacobs, Loyola University Maryland
sECTiOn FOur: rEsPOnsE
16. Prophecy and Omen Divination: Two sides of the same Coin ................. 341
Martti Nissinen, University of Helsinki
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PrEFACE
This book makes available the revised versions of the papers read at the fifth annual
university of Chicago Oriental institute seminar Science and Superstition: Interpretation of
Signs in the Ancient World, which took place at march 6–7, 2009. The printed volume has
a slightly different title, and it includes two papers from scholars who were invited to the
seminar, but could not come — from Barbara Böck and niek Veldhuis, while two participants,
Clifford Ando and Ann guinan, have decided to publish their papers elsewhere. i remain
thankful to all the contributors for a very smooth and efficient collaboration that gave birth
to this sizable volume.
i am grateful to gil stein, who initiated this remarkable post-doctoral symposium pro-
gram, and to the Oriental institute for giving me the opportunity to organize this event, so
making one of my dreams a reality. i would like to extend my warmest thanks to mariana
Perlinac, Kaye Oberhausen, and Christopher Woods for all that they have done to help me
organize this event. i also thank Thomas urban and Leslie schramer for their help with the
printing and editing of this book. i am also thankful to Cathy Dueñas for her help in everyday
matters.
Finally, i should mention my family — my wife merili, and children Kaspar and Kreeta,
who patiently shared half of my time here in Chicago. i am happy that they were willing to
come with me to a far-away city, where Kaspar could satisfy his ever-increasing curiosity,
and where Kreeta literally made her first steps in life.
Amar Annus
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seminar participants, from left to right: Front row: John Jacobs, Amar Annus, JoAnn scurlock,
ulla Koch, martti nissinen, Ann guinan, Francesca rochberg, James Allen. Back row: Edward
shaughnessy, nils Heeßel, Eckart Frahm, seth richardson, scott noegel, Clifford Ando,
Abraham Winitzer, robert Biggs. Photo by Kaye Oberhausen
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ON THE BEgINNINgS AND CONTINUITIES OF OMEN SCIENCES IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 1
1
on the Beginnings anD continuities
of omen sciences in the
ancient worlD
AmAr Annus, uniVErsiTy OF CHiCAgO
inTrODuCTiOn
The study of signs, portents observed in the physical and social worlds indicating the
will of supernatural agents and the course of future events, was undoubtedly important in
all ancient cultures. The first written evidence for a concept of sign, however, comes from
cuneiform texts of ancient mesopotamia. The study of signs from gods was vitally important
for ancient mesopotamians throughout their history. The first references to diviners and divi-
nation are already found in the written sources of the third millennium b.c., which indicate a
number of professional titles (see Falkenstein 1966). Among the early examples of celestial
divination one can point to the cylinders of King gudea, who needed an auspicious sign
(ĝiåkim in sumerian) from his divine master ningirsu, confirming his consent for building
a new temple in Lagaå. This evidence from the twenty-second century b.c. is the earliest
that clearly attests to the idea of signs in heaven and that omens conveyed divine decisions
(rochberg 2006: 337–38, 346–47). subsequently, consulting the will of the gods is a well-
attested practice in ancient mesopotamia, accompanying every significant political or private
action or undertaking.
The omen lore of the third millennium b.c. must have been of oral nature, because texts
recording omens do not appear in mesopotamia until more than a millennium after the in-
vention of writing.1 The first written samples of omen collections using the list format are
attested in the texts from the Old Babylonian period onward. According to n. Veldhuis, the
list as a traditional text type in mesopotamia was put to a much wider use in that period than
previously. Word lists had existed from the very beginning of cuneiform writing, but in the
Old Babylonian period
… an entirely new set of lexical texts was invented and put to use in the scribal
schools…. Lists are used to explain writing, sumerian vocabulary, grammar, and
mathematics. List-like texts are used to record laws, medicine, and omens. The list
becomes the privileged format for recording knowledge. The list-like format of the
omen compendium, therefore, indicated that this is scholarly knowledge. it connects
to the conventional format of a knowledge text, a format that was expanded and ex-
plored in particular in the Old Babylonian period (Veldhuis 2006: 493–94).
By establishing the format of knowledge text, the systematic omen recording into
lists could begin. under long processes of adding and editing, these collections grew into
1 For a discussion of this situation in regard to liver
divination, see richardson, this volume.
1
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2 AMAR ANNUS
compendia of ominous phenomena, where segments of original observations were expanded
into very comprehensive omen series, found in the archives and libraries of first-millennium
b.c. mesopotamia (see maul 2003). These omen compendia were given both practical and
theoretical value, which explains comprehensiveness of the phenomena recorded in the col-
lections, as practically everything observable in the universe could have an ominous import
to mortals.2 The holistic worldview of the ancient mesopotamians assigned a firm place to
every object and event in the universe according to divine will. Thus the incipit of the celestial
omen series En„ma Anu Enlil suggests that the gods Anu, Enlil, and Ea themselves designed
the constellations and measured the year in primeval times, thereby establishing the heavenly
signs. Accordingly, mesopotamian divination was an all-embracing semantic system designed
to interpret the whole universe.3 The belief that the entire universe is causally connected is
an ionian greek invention (scurlock 2003: 397), but a forerunner of it is already found in the
Babylonian Diviner’s manual (ll. 38–42):
The signs on earth just as those in the sky give us signals. sky and earth both produce
portents though appearing separately. They are not separate (because) sky and earth
are related. A sign that portends evil in the sky is (also) evil in the earth, one that por-
tends evil on earth is evil in the sky (Oppenheim 1974: 204).
As the divinatory texts testify, not all omens occurring in the cuneiform series were ob-
served in the real world, because many examples describe phenomena that are impossible and
could never occur.4 This indicates that simple observation and recording was complemented
by theorization and systematization. The original practical purpose of omen collections was
later expanded, and even superseded, by theoretical aspirations (Oppenheim 1964: 212). When
every single phenomenon in the world could be considered as a possible object for recording
in the spirit of examination and divinatory deduction, one can see in this attitude an early
example of the encyclopaedic curiosity, which is the basis for all scientific endeavor (Bottéro
1992: 127). Once an element of ominous import was uncovered, mesopotamian scholars were
able to record it extensively in hypothetically varying circumstances, sometimes creating at-
tenuated and increasingly arcane sequences (guinan 2002: 19). The format of the knowledge
text endorses speculation in its own right, which comfortably steps over the boundary of the
observable.5
The worldview represented by the omen series is not irrevocable determinism, in the
sense that every event is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. The
2 The standardized omen compendia cover, in as the shape taken by oil or flour thrown in water”
J. Bottéro’s words, “almost the entire material uni- (Bottéro 1992: 127).
verse: stars and meteorites; the weather and the calen- 3 Koch-Westenholz 1995: 13–19; see also Winitzer,
dar; the configuration of the earth, of waterways, and this volume.
of inhabited areas; the outlook of inanimate and veg- 4 see Brown 2000: 109; and rochberg, this volume.
etal elements; the birth and the conformation of ani-
5 As n. Veldhuis points out, “… the speculative or
mals and their behaviour, especially of man himself
scholarly side of divination is a context and use of
— his physical aspects, his behaviour, his conscious
its own, with its own relevance…. speculation does
and sleeping life, and so on. in addition to these phe-
not stop at the border of the possible; the systematic
nomena which present themselves to observation, a
character of compendia actually encourages crossing
number of others were latent and had to be revealed,
this border, exploring the observed, the likely, the
such as the internal anatomy of sacrificed animals. Or
unlikely, and the impossible on an equal footing”
they could be virtual and needed to be provoked, such
(Veldhuis 2006: 494).