The Design (uṣurtu)

Designs of sundry configurations are commonly said to occur in various parts of the liver and the lungs, mostly the 'finger' and the 'path'. We have little idea of what they looked like, since they are never described more precisely, as the following examples show:

"There is a design in the right side of the 'path'" YOS 10 20 r.21;

"In the right side of the 'finger' a design is drawn from its base to its top and it reaches the top of the 'finger'" BRM 4 12:7;

"A design is drawn from the left surface of the 'finger' to the base of the 'finger'" ibid. 10;

"A design is drawn in the right side of the middle 'finger' of the lung" KAR 153 r.17.

Ivan Starr

Ivan Starr, 'The Design (uṣurtu)', Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA04 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa04/otherpartsandfeaturesoftheexta/thedesign/]

SAAo/SAA04, 2014-. Since 2015, SAAo is based at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Historisches Seminar (LMU Munich, History Department) - Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Ancient History of the Near and Middle East. Content released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/] license, 2007-20.
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