Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance

by Morris Jastrow

Footnotes:

[1] Embodied in detail in the author’s Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens II 203-969 to be referred to hereafter as Jastrow Religion. See also various special articles by the writer such as “Signs and Names for the Liver in Babylonian” (Zeitschr. f. Assyr. XX 105-129). “The Liver in Antiquity and the Beginnings of Anatomy” (Trans. of the College of Physicians of Phila. XXIX 117-138). “The Liver in Babylonian Divination” (Proc. of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Soc. of Phila. XXV 23-30). “The Liver as the Seat of the Soul” (Studies in the History of Religions presented to C. H. Toy 143-169). “Sign and Name for Planet in Babylonian” (Proc. Amer. Philos. Society XLVII 141-156). “Hepatoscopy and Astrology in Babylonia and Assyria” (ib. XLVII 646-676). “Sun and Saturn” (Revue d’Assyriologie VII No. 2), and the general survey in the author’s Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria (N. Y. 1911), Chapter III and IV.

[2] The field of divination was gradually extended so that practically every unusual occurrence or every occurrence that even aroused attention was regarded as an omen. Among these miscellaneous classes of omens we may distinguish as distinct subdivisions (a) dreams, (b) phenomena connected with rivers and canals, (c) movements of animals—chiefly serpents, dogs, sheep and certain birds like ravens and falcons; also mice and rats, and various insects as roaches and locusts, (d) phenomena in houses and temples, including probably (as in Leviticus, Chap. 14) suspicious looking marks or spots, (e) peculiarities and diseases of any portion of the human frame. No doubt the list can be still further extended.

[3] See Hepatoscopy and Astrology in Babylonia and Assyria (Proc. Amer. Philos. Society XLVII 646 sq.)

[4] The Greek and Roman method of sending out birds and noting their flight is another example of voluntary divination, and so is the ancient Arabic method of selecting arrows, writing certain words on them, throwing them before the image or symbol of a deity and as they fell, reading the oracle sent by the deity.

[5] See the details in the writer’s ‘The Liver as the Seat of the Soul’. (Toy Anniversary volume 143-168.)

[6] See Jastrow, Religion II 120 sq. and “The Liver as the Seat of the Soul” (Toy Anniversary volume) 158-165.

[7] See Cumont, Fatalisme Astrale et Religions Antiques (Revue d’Histoire et de Littérature Religieuse 1912); also the same author’s Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (N. Y. 1912).

[8] Bezold and Boll, Reflexe astrologischer Keilinschriften bei griechischen Schriftstellern (Heidelberg Akad. d. Wiss. 1911); see also Cumont, Babylon und die griechische Astronomie (Neue Jahrbücher f. das klass. Altertum XXVIII Abt. I. 1-10).

[9] See Jastrow, Religion II 745 sq. and Boll, Der ostasiatische Tierzyklus im Hellenismus (Leiden 1912). I hope to treat this phase of the subject more fully in a special article. See for the present the summary of my paper on this subject in the Actes du IV^ère Congrès International d’Histoire des Religions (Leiden 1913) 106-111 and Records of the Past (Washington) Vol. XII (1913) 12-16.