Extispicy in Classical and Near Eastern Society

Abstract

Liver consultation was a practice in which the liver of an animal would be examined in order to receive messages from the gods. Ancient peoples would often perform this type of ritual before important decisions, such as committing to war, or signing a peace treaty. Throughout this paper, I examine three different systems of liver consultation from antiquity in chronological order—beginning with Babylonian extispicy since it is the most ancient, then moving to Greek hepatoscopy, and finishing with Etruscan haruspicy.
 As the names of these systems of liver consultation are different (extispicy, hepatoscopy, and haruspicy), so too are the practices of each culture. In order to highlight these differences, I analyse five aspects of each civilization: 1) Their religion, and the place of liver consultation within it, 2) The priests or diviners who performed the consultation, 3) The visual sources and material remains relating to liver divination, 4) The ancient literary accounts about this practice, and 5) The system utilized by the diviners in order to read livers.
 In an attempt to reconstruct the work of ancient diviners, I have undertaken a practical examination of sheep livers in the Babylonian, Greek, and Etruscan methods. I examined five sheep livers, each in all three methods, in order to determine the extent that divinatory procedure altered the message of the liver to the respective diviners. I conclude my paper by comparing the findings about each culture and relating my experience in the role of the diviner.