Ancient Greek Divination
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| Author | : Sarah Iles Johnston |
| Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
| Total Pages | : 208 |
| Release | : 2009-04-22 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1444303007 |
The first English-language survey of ancient Greek divinatorymethods, Ancient Greek Divination offers a broad yetdetailed treatment of the earliest attempts by ancient Greeks toseek the counsel of the gods. Offers in-depth discussions of oracles, wandering diviners,do-it-yourself methods of foretelling the future, magicaldivinatory techniques, and much more Illustrates how the study of divination illuminates thementalities of ancient Greek religions and societies
| Author | : Matthew Dillon |
| Publisher | : Taylor & Francis |
| Total Pages | : 487 |
| Release | : 2017-07-14 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1317148967 |
Addressing the role which divination played in ancient Greek society, this volume deals with various forms of prophecy and how each was utilised and for what purpose. Chapters bring together key types of divining, such as from birds, celestial phenomena, the entrails of sacrificed animals and dreams. Oracular centres delivered prophetic pronouncements to enquirers, but in addition, there were written collections of oracles in circulation. Many books were available on how to interpret dreams, the birds and entrails, and divination as a religious phenomenon attracted the attention of many writers. Expert diviners were at the heart of Greek prophecy, whether these were Apollo’s priestesses delivering prose or verse answers to questions put to them by consultants, diviners known as manteis, who interpreted entrails and omens, the chresmologoi, who sang the many oracles circulating orally or in writing, or dream interpreters. Divination was utilised not only to foretell the future but also to ensure that the individual or state employing divination acted in accordance with that divinely prescribed future; it was employed by all and had a crucial role to play in what courses of action both states and individuals undertook. Specific attention is paid in this volume not only to the ancient written evidence, but to that of inscriptions and papyri, with emphasis placed on the iconography of Greek divination.
| Author | : Kim Beerden |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 260 |
| Release | : 2013-08-08 |
| Genre | : Religion |
| ISBN | : 900425630X |
Worlds Full of Signs compares Greek divination to divinatory practices in Neo-Assyrian Mesopotamia and Republican Rome. It argues that the character of Greek divination differed fundamentally from that of the two comparanda. Ample attention is given to background and method at first. Subsequent chapters discuss the divinatory elements – sign, homo divinans, and text, relating divination to time and uncertainty. This book brings together sources originating from various times and places, questioning these to consider both generalities of ancient divination and specifics of Greek divination. Greek divination was inherently flexible on many levels: these findings should be connected to Greek views on time and the future as well as the relatively low level of divinatory institutionalization.
| Author | : Krzysztof Ulanowski |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 588 |
| Release | : 2020-10-20 |
| Genre | : Body, Mind & Spirit |
| ISBN | : 9004429395 |
Neo-Assyrian and Greek Divination in War is about practices which enabled humans contact the divine. These relations, especially in difficult times of military conflict, could be crucial in deciding the fate of individuals, cities, dynasties or even empires.
| Author | : John Opsopaus |
| Publisher | : Llewellyn Worldwide |
| Total Pages | : 200 |
| Release | : 2017-07-08 |
| Genre | : Body, Mind & Spirit |
| ISBN | : 0738752258 |
Throughout history, divination has been an important tool for seeking guidance from the gods. Fortunately, several classical divination systems are available to us again today. The Oracles of Apollo shows how to use two rediscovered divination systems: the Alphabet Oracle, a system that uses the ancient Greek alphabet, and the Counsels of the Seven Sages, a series of 147 short, oracular statements that were inscribed on tablets at Delphi. This book shares divination techniques and rituals—including the use of alphabet stones, dice, staves, beads, and coins—and interpretations of the outcomes to help you integrate the wisdom of the gods and goddesses. These oracles were originally designed thousands of years ago to provide insights into practical matters and deeper issues...and they can be used again today.
| Author | : Kostas Dervenis |
| Publisher | : Simon and Schuster |
| Total Pages | : 180 |
| Release | : 2013-12-17 |
| Genre | : Body, Mind & Spirit |
| ISBN | : 1620551640 |
The first complete guide to this ancient Greek form of divination • Explains how to cast and interpret this oracle using either coins or traditional animal bones • Reveals how the use of oracle bones predates the I Ching • Includes the complete matrix of oracle interpretations reconstructed by the author from stanzas in ancient Greek temples In ancient Greece methods of foretelling the future were widespread, whether they were official oracles of the gods or simple dice games to divine one’s luck. One of the most popular and accessible ways of determining one’s fate and fortune was through the ritual casting of animal bones, similar to the casting of coins or yarrow stalks with the Chinese I Ching. Kostas Dervenis explains how to interpret the casting of the oracle bones--either traditional sheep anklebones or coins--to answer your questions on love, health, wealth, and the future. Using the original stanzas discovered in ancient Greek temples in Greece and Turkey, the author reconstructs the complete matrix of interpretation for each possible casting of the bones. He explores how this practice traces back to the Golden Age of the Neolithic period in Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria--predating the I Ching--and how it is still practiced today as the popular folk game of “knucklebones.” Providing the first complete guide to this ancient practice, Dervenis allows anyone to cast the bones for guidance, inspiration, and insight into their fate.
| Author | : Lindsay Gayle Driediger-Murphy |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 309 |
| Release | : 2019 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0198844549 |
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This volume sets out to re-examine what ancient people - primarily those in ancient Greek and Roman communities, but also Mesopotamian and Chinese cultures - thought they were doing through divination, and what this can tell us about the religions and cultures in which divination was practised. The chapters, authored by a range of established experts and upcoming early-career scholars, engage with four shared questions: What kinds of gods do ancient forms of divination presuppose? What beliefs, anxieties, and hopes did divination seek to address? What were the limits of human 'control' of divination? What kinds of human-divine relationships did divination create/sustain? The volume as a whole seeks to move beyond functionalist approaches to divination in order to identify and elucidate previously understudied aspects of ancient divinatory experience and practice. Special attention is paid to the experiences of non-elites, the perception of divine presence, the ways in which divinatory techniques could surprise their users by yielding unexpected or unwanted results, the difficulties of interpretation with which divinatory experts were thought to contend, and the possibility that divination could not just ease, but also exacerbate, anxiety in practitioners and consultants.
| Author | : Sarah Iles Johnston |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 328 |
| Release | : 2005-07-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9047407962 |
This book thoroughly revisits divination as a central phenomenon in the lives of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. It collects studies from many periods in Graeco-Roman history, from the Archaic period to the late Roman, and touches on many different areas of this rich topic, including treatments of dice oracles, sortition in both pagan and Christian contexts, the overlap between divination and other interpretive practices in antiquity, the fortunes of independent diviners, the activity of Delphi in ordering relations with the dead, the role of Egyptian cult centers in divinatory practices, and the surreptitious survival of recipes for divination by corpses. It also reflects a ranges of methodologies, drawn from anthropology, history of religions, intellectual history, literary studies, and archaeology, epigraphy, and paleography. It will be of particular interest to scholars and student of ancient Mediterranean religions.
| Author | : Crystal Addey |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 226 |
| Release | : 2021-07-15 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1315449463 |
Addressing the close connections between ancient divination and knowledge, this volume offers an interlinked and detailed set of case studies which examine the epistemic value and significance of divination in ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Focusing on diverse types of divination, including oracles, astrology, and the reading of omens and signs in the entrails of sacrificial animals, chance utterances and other earthly and celestial phenomena, this volume reveals that divination was conceived of as a significant path to the attainment of insight and understanding by the ancient Greeks and Romans. It also explores the connections between divination and other branches of knowledge in Greco-Roman antiquity, such as medicine and ethnographic discourse. Drawing on anthropological studies of contemporary divination and exploring a wide range of ancient philosophical, historical, technical and literary evidence, chapters focus on the interconnections and close relationship between divine and human modes of knowledge, in relation to nuanced and subtle formulations of the blending of divine, cosmic and human agency; philosophical approaches towards and uses of divination (particularly within Platonism), including links between divination and time, ethics, and cosmology; and the relationship between divination and cultural discourses focusing on gender. The volume aims to catalyse new questions and approaches relating to these under-investigated areas of ancient Greek and Roman life. which have significant implications for the ways in which we understand and assess ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of epistemic value and variant ways of knowing, ancient philosophy and intellectual culture, lived, daily experience in the ancient world, and religious and ritual traditions. Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity will be of particular relevance to researchers and students in classics, ancient history, ancient philosophy, religious studies and anthropology who are working on divination, lived religion and intellectual culture, but will also appeal to general readers who are interested in the widespread practice and significance of divination in the ancient world.
| Author | : Michael Flower |
| Publisher | : Univ of California Press |
| Total Pages | : 326 |
| Release | : 2008 |
| Genre | : Biography & Autobiography |
| ISBN | : 0520259939 |
"Surveying all kinds of evidence—historiographical, literary, dramatic, and visual—Flower provides a comprehensive, readable, and engaging account of the operations of 'seers' during the Classical period."—Mark Griffith, editor of Prometheus Bound and Antigone "In a page-turning tour de force of anthropological reconstruction, classicist Michael Flower revisits hundreds of ancient texts to tease out his case for the absolutely central role of seercraft at all levels of ancient Greek society. Thanks to Flower's invitingly-woven tapestry of their mesmerizing stories and anecdotes, we can now savor, and comprehend through his lucid and persuasive interpretations."—Peter Nabokov, author of Where the Lightning Strikes: American Indian Ways of History
