The Babylonian summa immeru Omens
Transmission, Reception and Text Production
by Yoram Cohen
Hardback (Published)
(December 2020)
ISBN: 9783963270420
Price: $124.00
On back order
The Babylonian summa 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 summa 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 It offers complete text editions and commentaries of the omens, some previously unpublished.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 summa 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.
List of Figures / Acknowledgements / Preface / Abbreviations / The summa immeru Omens Textual Sources Chapter 1 Introduction Part I - Research and Publication History of the summa 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 summa 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 summa immeru Omens 5. How to Read the summa immeru Omens? 6. The Name of the summa 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 summa immeru Version 1. Edition and Translation 2. Commentary 3. Discussion Chapter 3 The Late Bronze Age summa immeru Version 1. Edition and Translation 2. Commentary 3. Discussion Chapter 4 The Intermediate Versions of the summa 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 summa immeru Omens 1. Edition 2. Commentary 3. Discussion Chapter 6 The summa 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 summa 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 Barutu Series and Related Texts 4.1 Barutu 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 summa immeru Omens 7. An Omen Compendium from Tigunanum of Severed Hooves and Fetlocks 8. Tablet 41 of the summa alu Omen Series 9. The summa izbu Omen Series 10. Omens from a Ewe Confined Overnight 11. The Hittite sasta 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=hubullu 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 summa immeru Omens--Past, Present and Future 1. The Past: The Presence of the God during the Extispicy Ritual 2. The Present: The summa 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 summa 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 Barutu 6. The Commentaries of the Standard Version 7. A Cross-Cut Comparsion between the summa immeru Versions Part III: The Many Lives of the summa immeru Omens 1. Text Standardization or Canonization? 2. Text Production of Omen Collections 3. Extispicy Omens: From Old Babylonian Collections to the Barutu 4. The Many Lives of the summa immeru Omens Bibliography Indices
- By (author) Yoram Cohen
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