Hepatoscopy

In the religion of Ancient Rome, a haruspex (plural haruspices; also called aruspex) was a person trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy (haruspicina) the inspection of the entrails (exta), hence also extispicy (extispicium) of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry. The reading of omens specifically from the liver is 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. Such methods continued to be used into the Middle Ages, with Thomas Becket apparently consulting both an aruspex and a chiromancer prior to a royal expedition against Brittany.

The Latin terms , haruspicina are from an archaic word haru "entrails, intestines" (cognate with hernia "protruding viscera", and hira "empty gut"; PIE ) and from the root "to watch, observe". The Greek ἡπατοσκοπία hēpatoskōpia is from "liver" and "to examine".

The Babylonians were famous for hepatoscopy. This practice is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel 21:21:

The Nineveh library texts name more than a dozen liver-related terms. The liver was considered the source of the blood and hence the basis of life itself. From this belief, the Babylonians thought they could discover the will of the gods by examining the livers of carefully selected sheep. A priest known as a bārû was specially trained to interpret the "signs" of the liver, and Babylonian scholars assembled a monumental compendium of omens called the Bārûtu. The liver was divided into sections, with each section representing a particular deity.

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