Haruspex

In the religion of ancient Rome, a haruspex (həˈrəspɛks ) (plural haruspices; also called aruspex) was a person trained to practise a form of divination called haruspicy (həˈrəspɛsiː ) (haruspicina), the inspection of the entrails (exta—hence also extispicy (extispicium)) of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry. The reading of omens specifically from the liver is also known by the Greek term hepatoscopy (also hepatomancy). The Roman concept is directly derived from Etruscan religion, as one of the three branches of the disciplina Etrusca. Such methods continued to be used well into the Middle Ages, especially among Christian apostates and pagans. The Latin terms haruspex and haruspicina are from an archaic word, hīra = "entrails, intestines" (cognate with hernia = "protruding viscera" and hira = "empty gut"; PIE *ǵher-) and from the root spec- = "to watch, observe". The Greek ἡπατοσκοπία hēpatoskōpia is from hēpar = "liver" and skop- = "to examine". The spread of hepatoscopy is one of the clearest examples of cultural contact in the orientalizing period. It must have been a case of East-West understanding on a relatively high, technical level. The mobility of migrant charismatics is the natural prerequisite for this diffusion, the international role of sought-after specialists, who were, as far as their art was concerned, nevertheless bound to their father-teachers. We cannot expect to find many archaeologically identifiable traces of such people, other than some exceptional instances. The Babylonians were famous for hepatoscopy. This practice is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel 21:26: For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shaketh the arrows to and fro, he inquireth of the teraphim, he looketh in the liver. One Babylonian clay model of a sheep's liver, dated between 1900 and 1600 BC, is conserved in the British Museum. The Assyro-Babylonian tradition was also adopted in Hittite religion.