Wrestling with Nature From Omens to Science

Natural Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia 13

from the Nineveh library holdings, which, it appears, are an excellent
representative of that tradition, as confi rmed by scholarly tablets found
outside Nineveh, even outside Mesopotamia, in foreign cities such as Susa
(Elam), Hattušaš (Anatolia), and Alalakh (Syria).
The later sources, from Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylonia, for the
most part, have not been acquired by scientifi c excavation, but rather
from the antiquities market going back to the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Principally, the provenance of the scholarly tablets
of interest here may be identifi ed with the cities of Babylon, Uruk, and
Sippar, whose major temples held archives for the scribe- scholars working
within their ranks.
From the earlier corpus of texts, largely comprised of omens of a vari-
ety of kinds, the following are illustrative:

If moths are seen in a person’s house: The owner of that house will become

important.

If [in a dream] he eats the meat of a wild bull: his days will be long.

If there is a mole to the right of his eyebrow: what his mind is set on, he will

not attain.

If the sick man turns his neck constantly to the right, his hands and feet are

rigid and his eyes close and roll back, saliva fl ows from his mouth and he

makes a croaking sound: epilepsy.

If a malformed newborn [lamb] has two heads, and the second one is on its

back, and its eyes look in different directions: the king’s reign will end in

exile.

If on the fi fteenth day the moon and sun are seen together: a strong enemy

will raise his weapons against the land; the enemy will tear down the city

gates.

If the sun stays in the position of the moon: the king of the land will sit

fi rmly on the throne.

If Venus comes close to Scorpius: winds which are not good will blow

towards the land; Adad will give his rains, and Ea his springs, to the Gutian

land.

If Regulus carries radiance: the king of Akkad will exercise complete

dominion.

If Jupiter passes to the west: the land will dwell in quiet.

If the sky shouts and the earth quakes: Enlil will bring about the defeat of the

land.

These “omens” seem to have little in common beyond their formula-
tion as conditional statements: if P, then Q. Closer consideration will reveal