Bestiarium Mesopotamicum: Tieromina im Alten Mesopotamien

The project examines the Ancient Mesopotamian divinatory series known by its incipit “If a city is set on a height” (Akkadian Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin). This composition collects un-solicited terrestrial omens taken from the diviners’ physical, every-day surroundings, includ-ing human and animal behavioural omens. Šumma ālu is not only the larger divinatory com-position from Ancient Mesopotamia (ca. 13.000 omens distributed over more than 100 the-matic chapters or “Tablets”), but also the most multifaceted. This notwithstanding, and, de-spite the fact that large parts of it are available in recent editions, interpretative studies on the series are conspicuously rare. The project addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the section of Šumma ālu which deals with the appearance and the behaviour of animals, Tablets 22-40 and 63-79. On the philological level, the project will update and improve the available editions of Tablets 22-40 and edit (in print and online, on ORACC) the hitherto unedited bird omens Tablets 64-79. Furthermore, it will explore the interconnected symbolic system under-lying the presentation of animals and the text-internal mechanisms of omen generation and omen arrangement. For pursuing its agenda, the project will take its methodological cue large-ly from the PI’s past work on the internal workings of Mesopotamian divinatory texts which has demonstrated the text-bound, literary nature of Mesopotamian divination. The project will apply the ʽdivination as literatureʼ methodology to the animal omens and demonstrate that they should not be seen as straightforward reflections of actual animal behaviour, but are conceived as a culturally constructed ʽbestiariumʼ in that they mirror human individual and collective concerns. As a paradigmatic example for the potential of its interpretative method-ology, the project will offer a wide-ranging analysis of the culturally conditioned representa-tion of the dog in divination and beyond. In this respect, it will break new methodological ground by introducing into Assyriological discourse concepts and methods taken from hu-man-animal studies and historical anthrozoology, thereby also extending the project’s impact beyond the boundaries of Ancient Near Eastern studies. Finally, the project will develop in collaboration with the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities (ACDH, ÖAW) an online data-base and an associated web-site which will allow interconnected searches within an omen corpus across several fields including Akkadian text in bound transliteration, translations, glossary and metadata (semantic fields, types of associations, imagery, omen structure, and so forth). This tool will not only serve as the basis for further research aiming at developing a comprehensive corpus of Mesopotamian omen compendia, it will also open up a new vision for the investigation of omen hermeneutics and Akkadian figurative language. The project’s team will include one senior postdoc (PI), one postdoc based at the ACDH, and three MA students.