Citatio: B. Christiansen (ed.), hethiter.net/: HDivT (31-07-2024)

The omens texts of Mesopotamian origin

General information

General information

The Hittite collection of omen texts, which originated in Mesopotamia, constitutes the largest and most significant collection of omens dating back to the second millennium, from which only a few omen texts have survived from Mesopotamia proper. These texts, written in the Akkadian, Hittite, or Hurrian language, manifest the Hittites’ keen interest in the Mesopotamian omen tradition and offer valuable insights into the transmission of knowledge across different regions of the ancient Near East. Alongside omen texts unearthed in Syria and northern Mesopotamia, the corpus originating from Ḫattuša plays a pivotal role in unraveling the extensive history of Mesopotamian omen traditions, which culminated in the canonical series known to us solely through first millennium BCE manuscripts.

The reasons for the interest of the Hittites in the Mesopotamian omen traditions, which is evident in texts from the entire period of Hittite history, have been the subject of much speculation. So far, only some possible reasons have been noted and discussed.

Similarly, there are so far no in-depth studies comparing the omen texts surviving from Hattusa with other second-millennium collections from Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as with the later canonical series of the first millennium. However, such studies are of great importance for gaining insight into the Mesopotamian divinatory tradition at a time that von Soden (1953: 22) described as ‟perhaps the most creative period in Babylonian literature”. In addition, the texts from these regions provide information on lexical and content-related questions that cannot be answered by the Mesopotamian tradition alone. A key prerequisite for such comparisons is an up-to-date edition of the omen texts found in Hattusa.