Teratomancy at Tigunānum: Structure, Hermeneutics, and Weltanschauung of a Northern Mesopotamian Omen Corpus

Abstract

This article examines the inner structure, building principles, and hermeneutic code of a group of late Middle Bronze age teratomantic tablets from Tigunānum in northern Mesopotamia. While in the final evaluation, the Tigunānum teratomantic corpus is of southern Babylonian inspiration, it represents a very specific local reworking of this tradition. This article posits as its distinctive feature the use of a strongly gendered imagery and language that reflect the worldview of an extremely androcentric and militarized society. It also demonstrates a connection between the cultural conceptions underlying the Tigunānum omen corpus and the Old Hittite sphere, the mid-second-millennium world of northern Mesopotamia, and later Assyria.