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September 5, 2007
Liver Models, Lung Models and Science
This post started as a rather technical post, but I decided, in the interest of readability and in deference to my own laziness, I'd skip the technical details and work in translation. In any case, the important points I want to make do not need the technical overhead. For those who are dying for all the gory details, I direct you to the short bibliography below.
The other day I mentioned the inscribed liver models found at Hazor. Similar models come from all over the Near East and from quite a wide period of time also. A half a dozen or so liver models from Ugarit have inscriptions in the standard Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet. I'll take a quick look at a few of them in a moment. But, in addition to the inscribed liver models from Ugarit, there is also a lung model (KTU 1.127) inscribed in Ugaritic. Lung models are not nearly as common as liver models. In certain ways, KTU 1.127 has more in common with the liver models from Hazor than do the actual liver models with Ugaritic inscriptions. Analogous to the lung models from Hazor and elsewhere, the scribe placed the inscriptions within specific areas of the lung. Here are a few examples in translation (your results may vary):
b) "(The sacrifice) of lament and giving of TRMN, the sacrifice that everyone eats; carry out the sacrifice according to the regulations." (KTU 1.127:4-9) placed over the right middle lobe of the lung.
In seems that, for the majority of the individual inscriptions on this model, their positions imply the protases of deductive omens but the inscriptions directly state the apodoses (as we was on the Hazor liver models for example). Unlike the Hazor liver models, the apodoses on the Ugaritic lung model prescribe actions (some kind of a sacrifice) while the apodoses on the Hazor liver models only predict the future. In this way, the Ugaritic lung model, is like the veterinary text I am studying; it is prescriptive rather than prophetic.
But this liver model is not quite strict in all this. Two inscribed sections, separated by a scribe line, on the bottom of the lung model seem quite different and related to each other rather than the topology of the model.
Is this telling us when and how to use the model? Is it saying, "If there is a major disaster, kill a goat, open it up, check out its lungs and determine from this model what to do? I think that is exactly what it is telling us. I think it important that these lines are not associated directly with any part of the lung but rather, with the totality of the model. I haven't looked to see if this kind of "instruction," itself a deductive statement, is common or even uncommon on other lung or liver models. I guess I should. By the way, this is not the most common understanding of lines 30-31 or KTU 1.27 as a whole. For a more "orthodox" view, see del Olmo Lete, 91-96 and 350.
When we turn to the liver models with Ugaritic inscriptions, we see something quite different. None of these inscriptions appears to be apodoses nor do they imply protases. Rather, many of the inscriptions appear to be reports of liver reading and not instructions on how to interpret livers. It's almost like these are receipts.
Here are a couple of examples that I have translated (again, your results may vary).
2) "Liver of an a[ss???] that YMM son (?) of YM slaughtered." (KTU 1.155)
3) "The sacrifice(?) of BYY son of TRY for 'THTR who is in a grave(?). (KTU 1.142)
Notice that first two likely relate to animal livers but the last one may report a reading of a human liver. I should say that, as usual, readings are difficult in the most important places.
The following inscription from KTU 1.78 feels more like an announcement of coming attractions:
Now for a little sermon (and some of this is a repeat): Omens are not magic. They are examples of deductive science. Of course, they generally didn't work but that is beside the point. Modern science has added induction and abduction to its logic toolbox and by so doing has developed a collection of theories that have more explanatory and predictive power than anything previously available. Except for those who have been unable to give it up, modern science relegated purely deductive science to history and often laughable history at that. We properly call it pseudo-science and we, also properly I think, see it as powerless and worse. For this very reason, the distance between those ancient people and us is greater than we often think. Among the comforts bequest to us by modern science is the comfort in knowing that we do not need to find meaning in everything and where we do find meaning we can use it for our own good and the good of our world. Of course, a major discomfort is that we can also use it for evil. For that reason we must learn to adhere to an ethic that is not itself based on "deductive science."
References:
Dietrich, Manfried and Oswald Loretz, "Beschiftetre Lungen- und Lebermodelle aus Ugarit, Ugaritica VI, Mission de Ras Shamra, XVI, Paris: P. Geuthner, 1969, 165-179
Dietrich, Manfred, Oswald Loretz, Mantik in Ugarit: Keilalphabetische Texte der Opferschau--Omensammlungen Nekromantie, Abhandlungen zur Literatur Alt-Syrien-Palästinas, 3, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1990
Posted by Duane Smith at September 5, 2007 7:26 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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Comments
I think you're spot on calling omens deductive science.
The Ugaritians (or Babylonians, Assyrians, etc.) wouldn't have called them "magic" because that is what those bad and wicked people do, not those of us who follow the true religion of (insert deity here). ;-)
Posted by: Jim Getz at September 6, 2007 9:11 PM
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