“If a star changes into ashes…”: a sequence of unusual celestial omens
A sequence of omens has puzzled Assyriologists since 1866, when Henry C. Rawlinson published the first copy of these peculiar divinatory texts. The omens have the structure DIŠ MUL ana … GUR, “If a star turns into …”, where the object into which the star changes can be an animal, metal, stone or som...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
2014
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| In: |
Iraq
Year: 2013, Volume: 75, Pages: 171-196 |
| Further subjects: | B
Omens
B Meteorites B Scribes B Cuneiform B Stars B Meteors B Constellations |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | A sequence of omens has puzzled Assyriologists since 1866, when Henry C. Rawlinson published the first copy of these peculiar divinatory texts. The omens have the structure DIŠ MUL ana … GUR, “If a star turns into …”, where the object into which the star changes can be an animal, metal, stone or some other item. Such a change has been held to belong to the field of dreams or, more generally, to terrestrial events rather than to astronomy. In fact, however, these omens refer to a specific celestial phenomenon, the transformation of a “star” into a meteorite that can be picked up from the ground, as can also be seen in the phrasing of the corresponding namburbi-ritual, which some scribes appended to their recension of this omen sequence. |
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| ISSN: | 2053-4744 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Iraq
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0021088900000450 |