The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth.

9781481308595

The Art of Divination in the Ancient Near East: Reading the Signs of Heaven and Earth

Stefan M. Maul. Translated by Brian McNeil and Alexander Johannes Edmonds

Baylor University Press

2018

345 pages

$59.95

Hardcover

BF1753

Drawing on the extensive ancient Near East sources that are now available, Maul traces the millennia-long earnest study of the phenomena of signs in the present world that indicate events in the future. Among his topics are sacrifice and the art of divination, the fine art of asking questions, divination to-go and prognostication on a shoestring, from meat inspection to science: the flourishing of the Babylonian art of extispicy, at the center of power: divination and political counseling, and on prognostication as sense and nonsense. Distributed in the US by Hopkins Fulfillment Services. ([umlaut] Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR)