TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE.................................................................................................................................... vii

INTRODUCTION

1. On the Beginnings and Continuities of Omen Sciences in the Ancient World...................

Amar Annus, University of Chicago

SECTION ONE: THEORIES OF DIVINATION AND SIGNS

2. “If P, then Q”: Form and Reasoning in Babylonian Divination...................................... 19

Francesca Rochberg, University of California, Berkeley

3. Greek Philosophy and Signs............................................................................................. 29

James Allen, University of Pittsburgh

4. Three Strikes and You’re Out! A View on Cognitive Theory and the First­Millennium Extispicy Ritual 43

Ulla Susanne Koch, Independent Scholar

5. Arousing Images: The Poetry of Divination and the Divination of Poetry..................... 61

Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago

6. The Theory of Knowledge and the Practice of Celestial Divination............................... 77

Niek Veldhuis, University of California, Berkeley

SECTION TWO: HERMENEUTICS OF SIGN INTERPRETATION

7. Reading the Tablet, the Exta, and the Body: The Hermeneutics of Cuneiform

Signs in Babylonian and Assyrian Text Commentaries and Divinatory Texts.................. 93

Eckart Frahm, Yale University

8. “Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign”: Script, Power, and Interpretation in the

Ancient Near East............................................................................................................... 143

Scott B. Noegel, University of Washington

9. The Calculation of the Stipulated Term in Extispicy.................................................... 163

Nils P. Heeßel, University of Heidelberg

10. The Divine Presence and Its Interpretation in Early Mesopotamian Divination........

Abraham Winitzer, University of Notre Dame

11. Physiognomy in Ancient Mesopotamia and Beyond: From Practice to Handbook... 199 Barbara Bock, CSIC, Madrid

SECTION THREE: HISTORY OF SIGN INTERPRETATION

12. On Seeing and Believing: Liver Divination and the Era of Warring States (II)......... 225

Seth F. C. Richardson, University of Chicago

13. Divination and Oracles at the Neo-Assyrian Palace: The Importance of

Signs in Royal Ideology.................................................................................................... 267

Cynthia Jean, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, FNRS

14. Prophecy as a Form of Divination; Divination as a Form of Prophecy.......................... 277

JoAnn Scurlock, Elmhurst College

15. Traces of the Omen Series Summa izbu in Cicero, De divinatione................................ 317

John Jacobs, Loyola University Maryland

SECTION FOUR: RESPONSE

16. Prophecy and Omen Divination: Two Sides of the Same Coin..................................... 341

Martti Nissinen, University of Helsinki

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