Ashmolean Museum: 29 (2023-07-05)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Lung omina; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Ashm 1924-793.

The cuneiform culture attests to a vast corpus of omina. Divination, the observation of signs on the organs of a sheep, was one of the major tools for predicting the future and come to a decision. While liver omina are well-known from cuneiform texts, omina regarding the sheep's lungs are quite scarce. This quite large and unfortunately fragmentary tablet in the Ashmolean Museum originates from the excavations in ancient Kish and therefore belongs to the rich finds of scholarly texts from the first millennium BC Babylonia. There are several parallels known for this text (collected by A. R. George, "Review of OECT 11," [1990], ZA 80, 159). Most notable is a fairly well preserved manuscript from Nineveh dating to the Middle Assyrian period and coming originally from Assur (K 205). Besides liver models in clay there are also a couple of examples of model lungs. The most significant example comes from Nimrud (CTN 4, 60). It is a three-dimensional model of a sheep's lungs and other internal organs. A further example is CBS 470, whose surface is divided into fields by lines. Each field is inscribed with either the cuneiform sign for "left," "right," or both to indicate whether the omen is good ("right") or bad ("left"). Coming back to our text, the following two omens may be cited: If the lower part of the lung is split on the right, then the totality of my army will disintegrate. My army will collapse in its main body. If the lower part of the lung is split on the left, then the totality of the enemy army will disintegrate. The enemy army will collapse in its main body. CDLI entry: P348953

credit: Wagensonner, Klaus