The Babylonian šumma immeru Omens

The Babylonian šumma immeru (‘If the Sheep’) omens are concerned with ominous signs drawn from the behaviour of the sacrificial sheep at the time of its sacrifice. They are part of the diviner’s craft of divination and are related to the technique of extispicy (i.e., the examination of the entrails). The literary history and the transmission of the šumma immeru omens is long and convoluted. The omens are attested from the Old Babylonian period to almost the very end of cuneiform civilization at Seleucid Uruk. Manuscripts of the omens and of their commentaries arrive from Babylonia, Assyria, Anatolia and Northern Syria. This book is the first comprehensive study of this omen genre. It offers complete text editions and commentaries of the omens, some previously unpublished. It places the šumma immeru omens within the context of Babylonian divination, and investigates how texts reached a “canonical” status that had become immune from changes during millennia of textual production, transmission and reception.

Yoram Cohen is Professor of Assyriology at the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University. He is the author of The Scribes and Scholars of the City of Emar in the Late Bronze Age (2009) and, with Lorenzo d’Alfonso and Dietrich Sürenhagen, the editor of The City of Emar among the Late Bronze Age Empires: History, Landscape, and Society (2008). His book Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age (2013) is a study of Babylonian wisdom and its spread throughout the cuneiform world. He has written many articles about scribes, schooling, and the dissemination of knowledge in the ancient Near East, as well as about the history of Hittite Syria.

“This useful monograph tackles a thematic group of divination texts which has long been familiar to omen specialists but never edited in its entirety, to include all text witnesses from the second and first millennia BCE, as well as ancient hermeneutical commentaries and comparisons with other divination genres.” M.J. Geller, BSOAS 84 (2021) 149

"This is an excellent contribution to the burgeoning field of divination studies of interest to both Assyriologists and scholars from other fields. The edition and the many in depth discussions will be of great inspiration to scholars working with extispicy and divination in general, as well as with textual transmission and the long history of Mesopotamian learning." U. Koch, JNES 81 (2022) 197

List of Figures / Acknowledgements / Preface / Abbreviations / The šumma immeru Omens Textual Sources

Chapter 1 Introduction

Part I – Research and Publication History of the šumma immeru Omens

     1. The Standard Version (ca. 1880s—1940s; 1980)

     2. The Assur Manuscripts (1930s; 2012)

     3. The Old Babylonian Version (ca. 1940s–1950s)

     4. The Late Bronze Age Version (1970s–Present)

     5. The Sealand Dynasty Manuscript (2013)

     6. General Discussions and Related Sources

Part II – An Introduction to the šumma immeru Omens

     1. Mesopotamia––Land of Sheep and Wool

     2. Sheep Terminology and the Terms for the Sacrificial Animal in Divination

     3. How did Extispicy Omens Come About?

     4. Divination Literature, Omen Compendia and the šumma immeru Omens

     5. How to Read the šumma immeru Omens?

     6. The Name of the šumma immeru Omen Compendium

Part III – The Extispicy Ritual

     1. The Ritual Purity of the Diviner

     2. Finding the Right Sheep for the Extispicy Ritual

     3. Placing the Oracle Question in Front of the Gods

     4. The Slaughter of the Sacrificial Animal

     5. “Reading” the Sheep

     6. “Reading” the Liver

Chapter 2 The Old Babylonian šumma immeru Version

     1. Edition and Translation

     2. Commentary

     3. Discussion

Chapter 3 The Late Bronze Age šumma immeru Version

     1. Edition and Translation

     2. Commentary

     3. Discussion

Chapter 4 The Intermediate Versions of the šumma immeru Omens

     1.Intermediate Version 1 (= IMV1)

          1.1 Edition

          1.2 Commentary

          1.3. Discussion

     2. Intermediate Version 2 (= IMV2)

          2.1 Edition

          2.2 Commentary

          2.3 Discussion

     3. Intermediate Version 3 (= IMV3)

          3.1 Edition

          3.2 Commentary

          3.3 Discussion

     4. An Extract of an Intermediate Version of the Series (IMV4)

          4.1 Edition

          4.2 Discussion

Chapter 5 The Standard Version of the šumma immeru Omens

     1. Edition

     2. Commentary

     3. Discussion

Chapter 6 The šumma immeru Commentaries of the Standard Version

     1. The Uruk Commentary 1

          1.1 Edition

          1.2 Commentary

     2. The Uruk Commentary 2

          2.1 Edition

          2.2 Commentary

     3. The Late Babylonian Commentary (LBC)

          3.1 Edition

          3.2 Commentary

     4. Discussion

Chapter 7 Related Sources to the šumma immeru Omens

Part I: Divination Literature

     1. The Sealand Dynasty Omen Compendium

          1.1 Identifying the Compendium

          1.2 The Structure and Content of the Sealand Dynasty Manuscript

          1.3 Characteristic Features of the Sealand Dynasty Manuscript

          1.4 The Sealand Dynasty Manuscript and Other Sealand Dynasty Omen Compendia

     2. The Assur Bone Omen Compendia

          2.1. KAL 5 2

          2.2. KAL 5 3 (KAR 432)

          2.3. KAL 5 4

     3. The Emar Bone Omen Compendia

     4. The Bārûtu Series and Related Texts

          4.1 Bārûtu Ch. 1 and its Commentary

          4.2 KAL 5 1 (KAR 423)

          4.3 K 6788––A Nineveh Fragment Relating to the Lower Parts of the Sheep

          4.4 Tablets Related to the Sheep’s Stomach body Parts (Boissier DA 97-99 and K 4112)

     5. Omen Reports and Queries

          5.1 Old Babylonian and Kassite Omen Reports

          5.2 Neo-Assyrian Queries and Reports

     6. Bird Divination

          6.1 Bird Divination Compendia: Sources and Distribution

          6.2 Bird Divination Omens and the šumma immeru Omens

     7. An Omen Compendium from Tigunānum of Severed Hooves and Fetlocks

     8. Tablet 41 of the šumma ālu Omen Series

     9. The šumma izbu Omen Series

     10. Omens from a Ewe Confined Overnight

     11. The Hittite šašta Oracles

Part II: Manuals, Vocabularies and Lexical Lists Relating to the Body Parts of the Sacrifical Sheep

     12. The Ritual of the Diviner

     13. A Manual of Sacrificial Procedure

     14. Vocabulary Lists and Lexical Lists

          14.1 An Old Babylonian List of Sheep Body Parts (BM 29663)

          14.2 An Akkadian-Hittite List of (Sheep) Body Parts (KBo 1.51)

          14.3 The 15th Tablet of the ur5-ra=ḫubullu Lexical List

          14.4. The Practical Vocabulary (The Assur Version) 

Chapter 8 The Sheep Body Parts

     1. The Head Region

     2. The Hind Area of the Animal

     3. Areas of the Abdomen and Rib Cage

Chapter 9 Conclusion and Discussion

Part I: The Apodoses of the šumma immeru Omens – Past, Present and Future

     1. The Past: The Presence of the God during the Extispicy Ritual

     2. The Present: The šumma immeru Formula – Let Go of the Sheep! Kill the Enemy!

     3. The Future: How will the exta look like?

Part II: The Structure, Content and Development of the šumma immeru Omens

     1. The Old Babylonian Version and Related Texts

     2. The Sealand Dynasty Manuscript

     3. The Late Bronze Age Version and Related Texts

     4. The Intermediate Versions 1–4 

     5. The Standard Version and the Bārûtu

     6. The Commentaries of the Standard Version

     7. A Cross-Cut Comparsion between the šumma immeru Versions

Part III: The Many Lives of the šumma immeru Omens

     1. Text Standardization or Canonization?

     2. Text Production of Omen Collections

     3. Extispicy Omens: From Old Babylonian Collections to the Bārûtu

     4. The Many Lives of the šumma immeru Omens

Bibliography

Indices