YBC: Highlights 122 (2024-02-25)

Created by: Wagensonner, Klaus

Liver Model Mentioning King Sin-iddinam of Larsa (YPM BC 023830, YBC 9832; Old Babylonian period (about 1900–1600 BC); Larsa?; 74 x 69 x 27 mm; clay)

The liver was the organ to which Mesopotamian diviners paid more attention than to any other when inspecting a sacrificial lamb to make predictions about the future (Meyer 1987). This liver model, possibly from Old Babylonian Larsa, is inscribed with a short historical account related to King Sin-iddinam of Larsa (reigned 1849-1843 BC) and an event thought to have been predicted by the specific configuration represented by the model. Some earlier translators assumed that the omen was about Sin-iddinam’s death resulting from a staircase having fallen on him in the temple of Shamash (for example, Goetze 1947a, 265), but the actual meaning of the omen may be more prosaic (Winitzer 2017, 46-47): This (exact appearance of the) liver “fell” to king Sin-iddinam when he (literally, who) offered a sacrifice in the Shamash temple during (the month of) Elul. (As for) the sheep’s owner, he will throw back the enemy and control what is not his. Mesopotamian liver divination probably influenced similar practices among the Etruscans, later taken over by the Romans. A bronze liver model from about 100 BC was found in 1877 near Piacenza in Italy (Maul 2013, 288-289). See it in the exhibition “Ancient Mesopotamia Speaks ... Highlights from the Yale Babylonian Collection” at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven, 6 April 2019 – 30 June 2020 CDLI entry: P293785

credit: Frahm, Eckart
image credit: Wagensonner, Klaus