Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance

by Morris Jastrow

[10] See Hartland, Primitive Paternity—especially the summary in Chap. VII, and also Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy I 93 seq.; 191 seq. etc.

[11] See Ploß-Bartels, Das Weib (2^d ed.) Chap. XXXII; Das Kind Chap. III, VIII, IX and Van Gennep, Rites de Passage Chap. V.

[12] Part XXVII and Part XXVIII Pl. 1-42 of Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets etc. in the British Museum, are taken up with texts of this character.

[13] Parts XX, XXX and XXXI and Pl. 1-42 of Part XXVIII represent the bulk of this section of the Library so far as recovered by Layard, Rassam and George Smith. Previous to the British Museum publication, Alfred Boissier had published three volumes of divination texts of all kinds under the title of Documents Assyriens relatifs aux Présages (Paris 1894-99) and in his Choix de Textes relatifs a la Divination Assyro-Babylonienne (Paris 1905-06).

[14] The chief publications of astrological texts is by Ch. Virolleaud under the title L’Astrologie Chaldéenne (Paris 1903-13), consisting up to the present of four parts and two supplements containing texts, and four parts with two supplements containing the transliteration of these texts. Besides this publication, M. Virolleaud has published numerous fragments of texts in the periodical Babyloniaca, founded and edited by him. Cun. Texts, Part XXX Pl. 43-50 also contains astrological texts; Part XXXIII Pl. 1-12 are aids to astrology.

[15] Chiefly by Boissier in the two works mentioned in note 2 on p. 6.

[16] Copious specimens of liver divinations texts in German translation with comments will be found in the author’s Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens II 227-412; of Astrological Texts ib II 458-740; Oil and Water, Divination ib II 749-775; of Animal omens ib II 775-826; of Birth omens ib II 837-941 and a summary view of the miscellaneous omens ib II 946-969.

[17] The same is the case with the collections of liver signs and to a large extent also in the case of the astrological collections.

[18] Cun. Texts XXVII Pl. 24 Cases of more than three births at one time are extremely rare. A case of quintuplets in Groningen in the year 1897 is vouched for by Prof. Döderlein of Munich and one was reported in the newspapers recently as occurring in the United States. A case of sextuplets is noted by Vasalli in the Boll. Med. della Svizzera Italiana, 1894, Nos. 3 and 4. This seems to be the highest mark, though Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII 3, on the authority of Trogus records that a woman in Egypt gave birth to seven infants at one time; Lycosthenes, Prodigiorum ac. Ostentorum Chronicon (Basel 1557) p. 284 reports the same number born in the days of Algemundus, King of the Lombards.

[19] Cun. Texts XXVII Pl. 3.