Haruspex

For the genus of beetles, see Haruspex (beetle).

A haruspex was a person trained to practise divination by the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry, a practice called haruspicy in the Ancient Roman religion. Various ancient cultures of the Near East, such as the Babylonians, also read omens specifically from the liver, a practice also known by the Greek term hepatoscopy (also hepatomancy).

The Roman concept is directly derived from Etruscan religion, as one of the three branches of the disciplina Etrusca.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.