- chapter 26: Haruspicy and augury –
Figure 26.8 Bronze handle of a pitcher (Schnabelkanne) with relief of a priest gazing upward,
fi fth century bce. Arezzo, Museu Archeologico Mecenate. (Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni
Archeologici della Toscana-Firenze).of lots) is mounting.^95 Careful review of religious iconography makes it all but certain that
the Etruscans utilized lekanomanteia (divination by gazing into a bowl of liquid), another
practice known from the Near East,^96 and catoptromanteia (divination with mirrors), a
ritual missing in the Near Eastern corpus, but known in many places in the world at
many different times and shared by the Etruscans, Greeks and Romans.^97 For some other
types of divination (dreams, smoke, dice),^98 we may never identify any specifi c evidence,
but given the demonstrable devotion of the Etruscans to haruspicy, brontoscopy and
augury, as well as the attention to prodigies, it would not be surprising to fi nd that some
of these other divinatory techniques were included in the disciplina etrusca.
NOTES1 Fundamental bibliography: Thulin 1968; Pfi ffi g 1975, 115–155; Torelli 1985, 210–216,
236–237; van der Meer 1987; Briquel 1997; Capdeville 1997; Maggiani 2005; de Grummond
2006b.
2 Thulin II, 3. Maggiani, 2005, 54, with alternate spellings for hariuga. Cf. also Haack 2006,
13, for the many variant spellings of haruspex in Latin inscriptions. The spelling harispex
prevails in inscriptions relating to individuals with a strong Etruscan connection.
3 Maggiani 2005, 65–66.
4 TLE 697. ET Um 1.7. An inscribed grave cippus from Tarquinia also tells that Arnth Apries
was a trutnuθ, but gives no further illumination on the meaning of the word. ET Ta 1.174.
5 TLE 524. ET Cl 1.1036.
6 TLE 131. ET Ta 1.17. Bonfante 2006, 13.
7 Maggiani 1989; de Grummond, 2006b; Roncalli 2010. For a thorough listing of such
depictions see Turfa 2006b. The emphasis in the present essay is upon Etruscan fi gures, both