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And Now For Something Completely Different – Extispicy

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The follow is from the Bārûtu: Manzāzu Commentary 1, tablet 2 according to the colophon on Rm 2, 103 i:17.

BE SILIM MÁŠ ina UGU MÁŠ e.ṣir šá ana SIG5 u ḪUL DUG4-ú IGI.MEŠ-šá ana 15 šá GAR.MEŠ-ma SIG5 ana 150 GAR.MEŠ-ma BAR-tum

Šumma šulum ṣibti ina muḫḫi ṣibti eṣir ša ana damqi u lemutti iqbû panū ša ana imitti šaknū-ma damqtu ana šumēli šaknū-ma aḫītu(m)

If the wellbeing(?) (šulum < šulmu) of the ṣibti is drawn over the ṣibti: they speak of good fortune and misfortune; features that are deposited toward the right are good fortune; (those) deposited toward the left are misfortune.

Rm2, 103 was first published by Boissier, 11-19, in 1894. Ulla Koch-Westenholz, 132-150, republished it along with several duplicates in a more contemporary, user friendly, style in 2000.

Koch, 45, 64-5, 66-7, tells us that the ṣibtu which she renders “increment” is the processus papillaris of the liver and the šulmu, rendered “wellbeing” is the lobus quandratus. It’s not so clear to me what the šulum ṣibti, “the wellbeing of the increment” is. Perhaps it only means that thelobus quandratus is drawn over the processus papillaris. I suppose that’s possible but from Koch’s, 45, drawing, they don’t seem to be all that near each other. Do I really need to learn liver anatomy?

Several things attracted me to this extispicy commentary. But at this point I dare not reveal them. Well, one of them I can reveal. Notice that the šulum ṣibti “speaks.” More common figures for how expispicy works involve writing and reading. But if free association has led you to wonder about whether damqi u lemutti might help us understand something else, keep it to yourself. People will think you are crazy. At least they will for now.

References:

Boissier, Alfred, Documents Assyriens relatifs aux présages (Paris: Librairie E. Bouillon, 1894)

Koch-Westenholz, Ulla Susanne, Babylonian liver omens: the chapters Manzāzu, Padānu, and Pān tākalti of the Babylonian extispicy series mainly from Aššurbanipal's Library (Copenhagen: Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, University of Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000)


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