Among hunting and gathering peoples prior to the advent of farming and herding ways of live, many people sought supernatural help in determining the location of game animals and the probability of success in harvesting these animals. Dreams were an important way of seeing the future, and hunters would report that they had seen animals in a particular location in their dream. As a consequence, the hunters would mount a hunting expedition to this location.
With the increasing dependence of domesticate plants and animals, human societies became larger and more complex. The human need to uncover the future and to predict future events, however, continued. Concern for food resources shifted from harvesting wild animals, to agricultural related concerns, such as the weather, bountiful crops and so on.
The importance of dreams as a way of seeing the future diminished but did not vanish, and more sophisticated and complex ways of determining future events evolved. In his book The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures, Nicholas Wade writes:
“Communication with the supernatural world emerged as a problem of increasing difficulty as people in settled societies became more sophisticated and, with the invention of writing some 5,000 years ago, more literate. Dreams and trances were still consulted, especially on an individual basis, but became less convincing as the basis for state religions. Instead, whole systems of divination were developed as a means of reading the intentions of the beings in the supernatural world.”
Seeking to understand the future involves divination which Richard Greenfield, in his entry on divination in the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, defines as “the supposed ability to acquire knowledge of the future or of other normally inaccessible matters by supernatural means.”
Early civilizations were societies which: (1) were agriculturally based; (2) had cities; (3) utilized writing; (4) had monumental architecture; and (5) were socially, politically, economically, and religiously hierarchical. As religious hierarchies, the theologies of early civilizations were focused on anthropomorphic deities rather than the animistic spirits of egalitarian hunting and gathering societies. Religion in the early civilizations became more formalized, structured, and hierarchical. In his book Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Bruce Trigger writes:
“While most deities could, on special occasions, manifest themselves almost anywhere and to anyone, especially in dreams and visions, in early civilizations they regularly did so only to priests and officials at appropriate temples, shrines, and cult places.”
While in the egalitarian hunting and gathering societies there were some individuals, often called shamans in modern parlance, who had more aptitude for divination, in the early civilizations divination was more likely to be the concern of the elites and/or religious specialists.
In the hierarchically organized early civilizations, divination also focused on the concerns of the elite and the newly formed states: kings, warfare, wealth, and so on. The principles of divination in early civilizations were often based on the premise that deities as well as other supernatural entities knew and/or somehow controlled the future. In his entry on divination in the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, Richard Greenfield reports:
“All the methods of divination in the Greek tradition, from the most sophisticated to the most crude, operate on the same basic principle: the belief that supernatural forces (whether gods, angels, demons, or spirits of the dead), endowed with greater understanding than humans, may reveal part of their superior knowledge through the phenomena being experienced or observed.”
Briefly described below are a few of the methods of divination used in some ancient civilizations.
Dreams
In the early civilizations, dreams continued to be considered as possible clues about the future. With regard to ancient Egypt, Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs, in their book Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile, write:
“Since all dreams were considered prophetic, the key lay in their interpretation, a service priests performed with the help of special books.”
Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs also write:
“A dream’s details, not its theme, determined its meaning: Egyptians viewed dreams as messages from the gods. Regardless of who the dreamer was, dream symbols were universal, carrying the same message for everyone.”
Ancient Greece continued the use of dreams as a way of seeing the future which had been found in the earlier civilizations. Charles Stewart, in his entry on dreams in the Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece, writes:
“Dreams had begun to be used for divining the future already in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. Indeed, the Greeks may well have borrowed from these two great civilizations.”
Oracles
The concept of oracles refers both to messages from the deities and to the places where these messages were received.
In ancient Egypt, oracular divination was present by the New Kingdom (about 1550 BCE). In Egypt, deities lived in temples and their statues were brought out in public processions only on certain festival days. In their book Ancient Egypt, Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin report:
“Oracles tended to be consulted on certain festival days, when the cult statue of the god was carried in procession out of his or her shrine on the shoulders of a number of priests.”
Lorna Oakes and Lucia Gahlin also write:
“The ancient texts are ambiguous about the way the oracles gave their answers, but there were various ways in which a god might have made his decisions known: by the priests speaking; by mechanical manipulation inside the statue, such as the movement of the head; by the statue carried by the priests moving forwards or backwards; or by the god approaching an affirmative or negative piece of writing placed on either side of the processional way.”
Among the Greeks, the most famous oracle was at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi which attracted pilgrims from throughout the Greek world and beyond. Here the priestess would sit on a tripod over a chasm from which vapors would emerge. Here she would fall into a trance and speak. Her utterances would then be refined by the priests into elaborate lines of poetry. Nicholas Wade writes:
“The oracle at Delphi, on the other hand, was based on the inhalations by the prophetess of a subterranean gas, recently defined as probably ethylene. The Pythia, as she was known, fell into a gas-induced trance and her mind possessed by the god Apollo. Her utterances, generally not very comprehensible, were interpreted by priests, and carried considerable political influence in the ancient Greek world.”
In China, a form of oracular divination which involved writing was present during the Shang period at about 1766-1122 BCE. This form of divination used scapulimancy (divination using cattle shoulder blades) and plastromancy (divination using turtle shells). In her entry on the Shang civilization in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, Sarah Milledge Nelson describes the process this way:
“The bones were prepared by smoothing and polishing and by making hollows on the back, usually in rows. Used for divination, pits were them made in the oracle bones which were then heated. A divination question was written near a pit in the bone and then heat was applied to crack it. The shape of the crack supplied the yes or no answer, with the help of the diviner.”
Sarah Milledge Nelson also reports:
“Questions usually concerned future events, such as the outcome of military campaigns and pregnancies, the weather, and the harvest.”
Other questions about the future included: At what point should the ruler undertake a tour of the country? Where and when should concerts take place? When should sacrifices be done?
Sometimes the oracle bones recorded more than just the questions. Bruce Trigger writes:
“The dates of divinations, the propositions tested, and sometimes the actual outcomes of events were recorded in writing on the shells or bones used for divination.”
Omens and Signs
People have always looked at signs—the wind, leaves on the tree, ripples in the water, shooting stars, the actions of birds, and so on—as possible symbols of the future. In the early civilizations, the use of omens and signs as the media for divination continued.
Among the ancient Romans, the wishes of the gods would be communicated to the people through natural signs, including lightning, earthquakes, comets, and the flight and behavior of birds. The Romans had an official body of expert diviners (known as augurs). The augur would carry a curved staff as a badge of office. The augur would face south and use the curved staff to mark out a section of the sky. He would then wait for the appearance of birds. A flight of birds on the augur’s left was considered a good sign.
Like the Romans, the Etruscans, a pre-Roman Italian civilization, also used natural phenomena in their divination of future events. One of these was lightning. In his entry on the Etruscans in the Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Ritual and Religion, Tom Rasmussen explains:
“Different shapes and colours of lightning offered different meanings, and it mattered greatly where it appeared in the sky and where on the ground it struck.”
One of the characteristic practices of many of the religions of the early civilizations was blood sacrifice: the ritual killing of a domestic animal such as a cow, goat, or sheep. In many cases the entrails of the sacrificed animal would be carefully scrutinized to determine the nature of future events. With regard to the Etruscans, Tom Rasmussen writes:
“Another approach to divination was to examine the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the liver of sheep. This art of haruspicy also has very close correlations with Mesopotamian practice where the animal liver (and sometimes the lungs and other organs) was examined for similar purposes.”
The liver was often used in this form of divination as it is the largest internal organ.
In ancient Mesopotamia, there were some priests who specialized in this form of divination. Stephen Bertman, in his Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia, reports:
“Priestly specialists known as baru priests were charged with the responsibility of divining heaven’s will by inspecting the organs (especially the liver) of sacrificial animals, by studying the heavenly bodies and the celestial messages their changes and movements implied, and by analyzing telltale patterns in floating drops of oil or upward-spiraling wisps of smoke.”
With regard to divination, Nicholas Wade writes:
“The Babylonians believed the will of the gods could be discerned from examining sheep’s livers, each portion of which represented a different deity. The Etruscans carried this system to Italy where it was adopted by the Romans.”
Astrology
Humans have always had a fascination for the movement of the stars, the moon, and the sun. People saw the natural cycles of the seasons and observed that there were correlations between these cycles and the movements they observed in the heavens. It was logical, therefore, to assume that the movements of the stars, moon, and sun could predict other cycles and future events.
In ancient Babylon there was a special group of scribes who observed and recorded the movements of the stars and planets. In addition, they recorded important political events and correlated these with their celestial phenomena. Over hundreds of years, the astronomers kept records and compiled archives of information about stars, planets, and omens. They would consult these archives to explain events and to make predictions.
Babylonian divination using astronomy was based on the idea that association is tantamount to causality. Thus, if two events occur in close proximity, one must be responsible for the other. Thus, if a successful event had been recorded when the stars were aligned in a particular pattern, then other events which take place then the stars are once again aligned in the pattern will be successful. Babylonian rulers made few important decisions without consulting with the astronomers so that they could predict the outcome of the event. Babylonians believed that one’s destiny was written in the sky.
The Babylonians were not the only early civilization that carefully observed the sky to determine the future. In his book Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study, Bruce Trigger writes:
“The Maya were deeply interested in the future. The divinations for their upper class appear to have been based largely on astronomical observations. Maya rulers supported detailed studies of the movements of the sun, moon, and planets over long periods in the hope of being able to foretell the future of individuals, kingdoms, and the cosmos. The Maya believed that events of the past repeated themselves in accordance with the motions of heavenly bodies.”
One of the features of early civilizations was warfare and Maya divination often looked to the stars, and in particular to the planet Venus, for predictions about success in war. In their book Encyclopedia of Ancient Mesoamerica, Margaret Bunson and Stephen Bunson report:
“Because the Maya feared Venus, its aspects in the heavens were considered when they planned military campaigns or raids on enemy territories. Extant records indicate that several cities undertook wars with their neighbors based on the various aspects of Venus. The planet was deemed malevolent to humans and could exert evil influences, especially in battles.”
For the Aztecs, the words of the gods and the procession of time could be read in the skies. They viewed time as cyclical with each unit of time repeating itself. The Aztecs maintained an accurate calendar which enabled them to keep track of the passage of days, months, and years. This knowledge was important in scheduling rituals and in understanding coming events. Margaret Bunson and Stephen Bunson report:
“The astrologers recorded the heavenly movements, which provided keys to magic and divination. The Aztec calendar provided for traditional good and bad days, and the diviners, called tlapauhqui, made use of these in forecasting affairs.”
Margaret Bunson and Stephen Bunson go on to report:
“Divination based on this astrological calendar involved the interpretation of the significance of each day as it pertained to someone’s birth, projects, marriages, or political activities.”
For the Aztecs, every person’s destiny was closely tied to the person’s birth date. The cycles of time repeated, so understanding the birth date and the events associated with it provided insights into the individual’s future. If a child were born on a “bad” day, the naming ceremony would be delayed so that the child would have a better future.
Religion 101
More from this series:
Religion 101: Demons
Religion 101: Ancient Mummies
Religion 101: Religion and Ancient Civilizations
Religion 101: Shamanistic Ceremonies
Religion 101: Atheism
Religion 101: Blasphemy
Religion 101: Searching for the Earliest Religion
Religion 101: Revealed Religions
