Click here and also here for a brief overview of ancient Babylonian divination rituals...
Can you surmise why the liver was viewed as such an auspicious organ? What roles do medical and empirical knowledge play in such activities? What about religion, and (dare we say) magic?
6 comments:
Medically, I think the ancients knew the liver was vital to life. Since it is a large organ generally in the middle of the body and filled with blood. They might have even seen it as more vital than the heart.
Empirically, I read that they might have further chosen the liver because it is a smooth organ making it easier to detect markings and abnormalities. These marks indicated events to come.
Magically, I think these people used slain animal parts to establish their domanance and ability to control the world around them. By selecting the liver and lungs, the ancients were further empowering themselves by utilizing what they thought were the most important organs: liver and lungs.
Here's a link to a site with some more information.
http://traumwerk.stanford.edu/archaeolog/2007/09/reading_livers_through_reading_1.html
Deirdre Adams
I wonder if only animal livers were used. Would it work to use a human liver? whose liver would it be? What if you used an unhealthy liver? Does this mar your ability to read or is this in itself a sign of some sort?
Knowing that the liver was so vitally important, I imagine the details of a vital organ were supposed to mirror the health of a vital world in which people lived. I wonder that this liver was chosen as the organ to be read, as opposed to something else. Is the physical nature of the liver such that it makes it more clear to be "read" the way the ancients needed?
Margaret Ransdell-Green
Different organs could be used to interpret different things such as telling the future. Im sure that livers among other organs were used in magical ceremonies or religious ceremonies to predict things or maybe even ask for things. They differ from each culture and its always interesting to see what the different types of objects that are used.
-Taylor E.
Thanks for sharing the link, Deirdre... good stuff!
pdk
Even in ancient times it must have been obvious that the liver was important. Its filled with blood that is darker than in the rest of the body so perhape they thought that it was the source of all knowledge and thus tried to tap in to it to see the future.
Casey S.
Not only did the liver have alot of blood that was in most cultures condisdered sacered, The liver is also an organ that shows alot of the damage/effects that is done over a lifetime of any habbitseither positive or negative. The religious aspect is that to have life you must have a liver, and so liver could symbolize life, or without blood there is no life, and it seemed like the one organ that held the most of it.
Emily Peterson-Wood
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