14 Rochberg
the operation of two readily recognizable binary classifi cations: personal
and public, earthly and heavenly. Beyond these exceedingly simple struc-
tures, however, are many more elements whose meanings are not self-
evident, yet a certain descriptive quality seems characteristic of all the
protases (“if”-clauses). The statements quoted above are, in fact, ran-
domly selected examples of each of the major divination reference works
in a particular classifi cation of omens. This class is united by the feature
that the ominous events, the phenomena, simply occur in the world. All
physical phenomena occurring on Earth and in the sky, including the
behavior of heavenly phenomena, animals, birds, and human beings,
were potential signs indicating future mundane events as decided by the
gods. In this form of divination, the diviners observed the world without
specifi cally requesting signs. This technique contrasted with the classifi -
cation of omens obtained by means of some material manipulation by
the diviner. These so- called provoked forms of divination required that
the diviner perform an action which served to invite a response from
Šamaš and Adad, the gods of the sun and the storm who were associated
with divination. The inspection of the entrails (extispicy) of a sacrifi ced
lamb was perhaps the most frequently performed divination by provoca-
tion, and the most frequently examined of the exta was the liver. Clay
liver models, probably used as teaching devices, some dating from the
Old Babylonian period (ca. 1800 BCE), survive.^4 Other provoked omens
were obtained by dropping oil on water (lecanomancy) or emitting smoke
from a censer (libanomancy), as well as the casting of lots and scattering
of fl our. The notion of the god (often Šamaš) “writing” the signs on the
exta of sheep is well known from prayers and incantations spoken by
the diviner prior to the divination itself: “you (Šamaš) write upon the
fl esh inside the sheep (i.e., the entrails), you establish (there) an oracular
decision.”^5 Evidence of this practice is also found in the inscriptions of
kings, who legitimized themselves or their activities by appeal to the af-
fi rmative answers of the gods, as here in an inscription of Esarhaddon of
Assyria (680–669 BCE):Thus did he [my father] ask of Šamaš and Adad by divination: “Is this the heir
to my throne?” and they replied to him with a strong affi rmative: “He is your
successor.”^6The distinction between provoked and unprovoked omens refl ects
Mesopotamian thought about divination, as it appears from their use of
different terms for types of diviners. The haruspex (the diviner who in-
spects the liver) as well as the oil and smoke diviner was the ba ̄rû and