Die babylonisch-assyrische Morphoskopie.

• Author: Scurlock, Jo Ann
• Position: Reviews of Books - Book Review

Die babylonisch-assyrische Morphoskopie. By BARBARA BOCK. Vienna: INSTITUT FUR ORIENTALISTIK DER UNIVERSITAT WIEN, 2000. Pp. 348, plates. OS 1280 (paper).

The book under review is a study of what are usually referred to as physiognomic omens, that is, omens drawn from the appearance of ostensibly normal healthy men and women. It consists of a transliteration and translation of the extant omens and six introductory chapters of discussion and synthesis (plus indices, a bibliography, and text copies).

Chapter 1, the introduction properly speaking, notes that the ancient Mesopotamian name for the series of tablets of physiognomic omens, Alamdimmu, is not, as is usually the case, the incipit of the first tablet but instead the incipit of the twelfth tablet. This would seem to suggest that somebody added eleven tablets to the beginning of the series at some point in its history. The most likely suggestion as to the identity of that somebody is the eleventh-century Borsippan redactor, Esagil-kinapli, who was also responsible for a new edition of the medical diagnostic and prognostic handbook SA.GIG. Even if it were not already known for certain that this ancient scholar was associated with Alamdimmu, one could have guessed this from the fact that this series, like SA.GIG, is divided into subseries, from the fact that entries relating to women are dealt with on tablets specially reserved for them, and from the fact that the first twelve tablets (including the presumed addition) are organized in the same "head to toe" order (p. 1) characteristic of the second subseries of SA.GIG, which is Esagilkin-apli's personal contribution to that series. (2)

If Esagil-kin-apli was consistent in his numbering of tablets, his version of Alamdimmu will have contained a number of tablets corresponding precisely to the number associated with some appropriate divinity. (Note that SA.GIG has forty tablets, in harmony with the numeral 40 indicative of Ea, patron of medicine. (3)) If so, the twelve tablets of the subseries Alamdimmu, properly speaking plus the two tablets each of the subseries Nigdimdimmu, and Summa sinnistu qaqqada rabat and the single tablet of Summa kataduggu add up to a total of seventeen tablets. The number of tablets in the subseries Summa liptu is unknown, but the catalogue has only four lines in this section, and one of these is apparently only part of a line. (4) However, there are indications that the catalogue is incomplete and that there was actually one more tablet of the subseries Summa kataduggu. Counting as one each the remainder of the tablets that can be assigned to this series according to their colophons gives another ten, or twenty-eight tablets in all. If there were actually twelve tablets (as with the first subseries), the yield would be a total of thirty, the number of the god Sin, patron divinity of divination.

As might have been expected, the series Alamdimmu (like SA.GIG) came under the purview of the asipu. What distinguishes his omens from those that were the responsibility of the baru is that the latter's practice (primarily extispicy but also oil, smoke, and lot omens) were all solicited. Before the offering sheep was cut open, for example, an ikribu-prayer was recited to the gods asking them to write the answer to a question onto the exta. By contrast, the omens in the expertise of the asipu (e.g., astrological omens and Summa alu) were...