Of all the divinatory techniques of Mesopotamia, the one with the highest prestige was extispicy, the examination of the entrails of a sacrificed animal, and in particular hepatoscopy, the reading of the liver. Kings and generals turned to it before a battle, the building of a temple or the appointment of an official. For the Babylonians it was not a game of interpretation: it was the way the gods wrote their answer into the animal's body.
The bārû, the diviner
The specialist in this technique was the bārû, a term meaning roughly «the one who observes». Like the exorcist, the bārû was a scholar trained on canonical texts. His work required ritual purity, knowledge of prayers and an enormous memory of omens already recorded.
The deities invoked were Šamaš, the Sun, the judge who sees all, and Adad, the storm god. The sources call them the «lords of divination». Before the sacrifice, the bārû recited a prayer and asked a precise question, often phrased so as to obtain a yes or no answer.
Queries to the Sun
From seventh-century BCE Assyria we have a group of texts known as queries to the Sun god, drawn up for the kings Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. They have a fixed structure:
- the god is named and the question is posed, for example whether a certain enemy will attack a city within a certain period;
- the god is asked to disregard any ritual errors, such as an impure garment or a wrong word;
- the observations on the liver and other organs are recorded;
- it concludes with the verdict, favourable or unfavourable.
These texts show hepatoscopy as a tool of government, used to make political and military decisions.
The map of the liver
The lamb's liver was divided into zones, each with a name. Some well-attested Akkadian terms are:
- manzāzu, the «Presence», a groove on the left lobe;
- padānu, the «Path»;
- bāb ekalli, the «Palace Gate»;
- danānu, the «Strength»;
- martu, the gall bladder.
Each zone was examined for shape, colour and the presence of marks, holes or growths. A sign on the right side generally concerned the person consulting; on the left side, the enemy. This logic of right and left is one of the most stable principles of Mesopotamian divination.
| Zone | Translated name | Symbolic sphere |
|---|---|---|
| manzāzu | Presence | stability of one's position |
| padānu | Path | journey, campaign |
| bāb ekalli | Palace Gate | power and access |
The clay models of Mari
One of the most important archaeological finds for this discipline is a group of clay liver models found in the palace of Mari, on the Euphrates in present-day Syria, dating to the early second millennium BCE. The models reproduce livers with particular marks and carry inscriptions linking that configuration to a historical event, such as a revolt or the fate of a king.
These objects probably had a teaching and archival function: they preserved the memory of an omen and taught it to future diviners. Another famous clay model, in the British Museum, is divided into dozens of compartments with short omens, like an annotated map.
The Bārûtu series
In the first millennium BCE the diviners' knowledge was organised into a great canonical series called Bārûtu, «the art of the bārû», made up of numerous tablets arranged by parts of the liver and other organs. The omens follow the conditional form typical of Mesopotamian divination: «If the Path is double, then…». It is a style of writing that resembles that of laws, and not by chance: in both cases the aim is to fix a reliable relation between a sign and a consequence.
From the Euphrates to Italy
Hepatoscopy did not stay confined to Mesopotamia. Liver models have also been found at Ugarit and at other sites in the Levant and Anatolia. In Italy, the famous Liver of Piacenza, an Etruscan bronze model found in 1877 in the countryside near Piacenza, is divided into compartments bearing names of deities. The precise historical link between the Etruscan haruspices and the Babylonian tradition is still debated, but the similarity of the idea is evident.
A symbolic reading
For the Babylonians the liver was the seat of life and of deep emotions. To read the liver was to read the hidden heart of the world. In the Hermetic tradition this idea of a microcosm reflecting the macrocosm has had a long career, and hepatoscopy is perhaps one of its first concrete expressions.
In short
- Hepatoscopy was the most prestigious form of divination in Mesopotamia.
- The bārû put precise questions to Šamaš and Adad before the sacrifice.
- The liver was divided into zones with names such as Presence, Path and Palace Gate.
- The clay models of Mari linked marks on the liver to historical events.
- The technique reached the Levant and finds a parallel in the Etruscan Liver of Piacenza.
