1The main argument of this paper centres on the image and role of the dog and the pig in Mesopotamian divination. I show that our sources, in fundamental ways, do not so much reflect the animal world, even when they ostensibly talk about it, as they shed light on human society. The literary treatment of animals in divinatory sources opens up a window into deep-rooted convictions and value judgements that underlie social relations and underpin social hierarchies. Ultimately, this is an investigation into Ancient Mesopotamian mentalities.¹

Ancient Mesopotamian omen lists

2The basic premise of Mesopotamian divination consists in a vision of reality that is permeated by messages about the future couched in physical phenomena.² Their meaning is not immediately evident, but can be decoded, since all physical phenomena are connected to the supernatural sphere. The gods may communicate their intentions on their own initiative by means of ominous signs in heaven or on earth. Alternatively, they may respond to specific questions that are posed to them in specific circumstances and in a specific manner. Such signs can be solicited by investigating the body of a sacrificial animal and the patterns made by oil on water, rising smoke, or scattered flour.

3Mesopotamian divinatory texts fall into several genres.³ The most common kind are lists of predictions or “omens” written in Babylonian. These take the form of conditional clause consisting of premise and consequent, or, in grammatical terminology, protasis and apodosis: the protasis contains the description of a sign, while the apodosis gives the pertinent prediction. For instance: “If the gall-bladder’s inside is full of blood, (this signifies) mistakes by the diviner, downfall of the army”.⁴ By the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, lists including thousands of such omens had developed into thematically organized compositions which are called “series” in Assyriological parlance. These series were transmitted in scribal milieus in a standard or “canonical” form until the very end of cuneiform culture at the end of the 1st millennium BCE.⁵

4Omen lists represent the academic and theoretical side of Mesopotamian divination. Rather than being records of observed celestial or terrestrial phenomena, as it has long been assumed, they offer general “principles”, or rules, that have validity beyond the individual occurrence. These rules are not set out in abstract terms, but they are meant to be deduced from the lists of individual cases. Mesopotamian omen lists are to be seen as the reflection of theoretical considerations on what might constitute positive or negative signs, such as right is good, left is bad, snakes are bad, eclipses are bad, deformity is bad, etc. Such notions are the result of a schematic, “variation-reducing” categorization of terrestrial and celestial phenomena.⁶ In this process, the diviners focussed only on selected sets of phenomena, to which they attributed meaning by means of hermeneutic rules based essentially on analogy.⁷ It has been shown that the connection between protasis and apodosis in Mesopotamian omen lists is generally based on some relation of similitude between them on the semantic, phonetic, or graphic level. For instance, an extispicy omen states: “If at the base of the middle finger of the lungs (Akkadian ubān ḫašî qablīti; the intermediate or accessory lobe of the right lung) there is a weapon (Akkadian kakku; a marking on the lungs) and it faces its head, (it is) a weapon of rebellion”.⁸ The middle finger’s “head” is associated with the king; the pointing of weapons from the base towards the head means rebellion of the king’s subordinates against him.

5The characteristics that could be attributed to the set of phenomena chosen for divinatory investigation to modify their ominous meaning were fairly standardized and followed schematic principles. In particular, the application of a binary logic, i.e., the categorization of phenomena on the basis of binary distinctions (right/left, up/down, front/rear, white/black, bright/dim etc.), which correspond, respectively, to a favourable or unfavourable prediction, is extremely common. Individual omens are then placed in sequences which are organized according to simple and complex patterns of “gradation” – vertical sequences of structurally identical protases distinguished from each other by the variation of a single element – binary opposition being only the most basic pattern.⁹ Consider, for example, the following sequence taken from a chapter of the 1st millennium BCE series of extispicy known as Iškar bārûti, “The series of the diviner’s craft”, or simply Bārûtu:¹⁰

If the top of the palace of the middle finger of the lungs is divided and fissured (once), (this signifies) capitulation of the city.
If the top of the palace of the middle finger of the lungs is divided and fissured twice, the vizier will revolt against his lord.
If the top of the palace of the middle finger of the lungs is divided and fissured thrice, the vizier of the king will kill him.¹¹

6The sequence describes the malformation of the upper part of a section of the lung’s intermediate lobe which is called the “palace” (Akkadian: ekallu). The second and third omens take up the protasis of the first one and elaborate on it by replacing one fissure on the “palace” with two and then three fissures. Furthermore, the triadic sequence in the protases corresponds to an ascending order of severity of prediction in the corresponding apodoses.

7The systematic application of theoretical rules such as the ones described above allowed the Mesopotamian diviners to generate almost limitless sets of new omens.¹² The final goal was to create a system of knowledge that was, at least theoretically, all-encompassing and fully interconnected.

Animals in Mesopotamian divination

8Animals are ubiquitous in Mesopotamian divination and divinatory literature.¹³ Sheep or lambs were the main vehicle of the Mesopotamian variety of extispicy, the most important and best attested Mesopotamian oracle technique,¹⁴ but sacrificial birds could also be used.¹⁵

9Unsolicited omens taken from the appearance and behaviour of a wide array of terrestrial, aquatic and flying animals in the city and its immediate surroundings or inside a man’s house and its immediate surroundings were collected into a large divinatory series named after its incipit If a City is Set on a Height (in Akkadian Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin).¹⁶ Most of the omens discussed in this paper derive from this composition (henceforth abbreviated as Šumma ālu). It originally consisted of more than 100 chapters (Tablets in Assyriological parlance), of which at least 47 were focused on animals, ranging from small animals, such as snakes, scorpions, lizards, and various kinds of insects, to larger domesticated (e.g., sheep and donkeys) and wild animals (e.g., lions and foxes), as well as aquatic and amphibious creatures (fishes, frogs, tortoises) and birds.¹⁷

10Omens from malformed animal births, lambs mostly, and omens from odd births and behavioural peculiarities among specific animals (sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys, horses, pigs, dogs, gazelles) were part of an omen series pertaining to teratomancy known in antiquity as If a Miscarried Foetus (in Akkadian Šumma izbu).¹⁸

11Animals figure prominently in dream omens: some describe, for instance, the encounters between the dreamer and various animals.¹⁹ Omens were also derived from the animals encountered by an exorcist on his way to his patient.²⁰

12In omen literature animals can also be referred to in comparisons or metaphors. Figurative faunal imagery plays an important role in celestial divination,²¹ teratomancy, physiognomy, and extispicy. Consider, for instance, the following example taken from Šumma izbu: “If a woman gives birth and the newborn child has the head of a lion, there will be a strong king in the land”.²² Another example, derived from a Babylonian physiognomic omen series known as Alamdimmû (Form),²³ concerns a man’s physical appearance: “If he has a fox’s face, he is a liar, false, his brother will become poor”.²⁴ A third example is an extispicy omen: “If the “presence” (Akkadian manzāzu; a part of the sheep’s liver, probably the impressio reticularis) is like the sting of a scorpion, out of jealousy (lit. “through burning of her crotch”) a man’s wife will set his house on fire”.²⁵

13In these omens, we see that the several animals that appear in the protases tend to be associated with predictions for the human sphere that fall into a certain limited range. In other words, the animals “stand” for certain aspects of human society or human behaviour: essentially, the diviners map onto the animals their interpretation of their social environment. The associations attached to the animals in question range from the straightforward, conventional and possibly universal, anthropologically speaking, to the culture-specific. Lions are symbols of royalty and are connected with strength and aggressiveness.²⁶ Horses and bulls are also associated with royal power and military might.²⁷ Foxes represent sneakiness, rapaciousness and treacherous behaviour.²⁸ Wild animals are generally negative signs, especially when they break into normal spheres of human activity:²⁹ wolves, for instance, are associated with conflict, plague and death.³⁰ Scorpions are metaphors for sexuality and are often associated with women and eroticism.³¹

Dog omens in Mesopotamia: of women, fire, and other dangerous things

14Particular attention needs to be given to domestic animals. These stand by their very nature on the margins of the animal kingdom, in the liminal area between the feral or bestial and the human. In a recent study by the classicist Cristina Franco, this was demonstrated for the dog on the basis of Greek sources and anthropological comparanda.³² In ancient Greece, Franco argues, the dog is man’s trustworthy companion, and yet, at the same time, the animal’s name is an insult. The ambiguity results from the perceived tension between the animal’s virtues and its occasional signal shamelessness and bestiality. The dog is a valuable member of the male-dominated household and as such, it is judged by “human” standards. In this light, of course, it cannot but fail. The dog has obviously no claim to the same degree of self-control, rationality and reliability that is expected from a free male. This, then, leads to the association between the dog and the female. In Greece, of course, women are not men’s equals: much can be expected from them, and they have their merits, but they can never aspire to reach the excellence attributed to, or expected from, men. On a symbolic level, therefore, dogs and women could be equated in classical Greece.

15A similar argument can be made for the Mesopotamian dog, and the Mesopotamian pig. Just as its classical counterpart, the Mesopotamian dog has one paw, as it were, in the bestial world, and one in the human sphere.³³ Three ideal-type roles are attributed to dogs in omens: the positive guard dog, the negative feral scavenger dog, often acting in groups, and the domestic dog with a close relationship to a human.

16While the role of the dog as guardian of individual households is referred to in Mesopotamian sources only occasionally,³⁴ man’s “most trusted helper” makes a regular appearance in rural settings with the topos of the dog defending the flocks against wild beasts. In a literary composition known as Series of the Fox (Akkadian Iškar šēlebi), which is cast in the form of a debate between a wolf, a fox, and a dog, the dog brags:

I take my onerous place before the sheep, their lives are entrusted to me instead of to shepherds or herdsmen (…) at my baying, panther, tiger, lion, wildcat take to flight (…) no rustler thieves [from] my pens.³⁵

17The dog is also given the epithets of “harasser of wild animals” (Akkadian muṭarrid umāmi) and “herald of the city” (Akkadian nāgir āli).³⁶ Especially the latter image is echoed by a Sumerian proverb from the early Old Babylonian period (ca. 1900-1800 BCE). This text tells the story of a fox and a vixen who made boastful threats against the cities of Uruk and Kullab but were repulsed by the barking of the dogs from within the still distant city.³⁷ Here, and elsewhere in urban and para-urban settings, the fox is the dog’s counterpart: the image of the first is construed as antithesis to that of the second. It is therefore possible, and useful, to follow the tracks of the two animals in parallel, as we do in the following paragraphs: they elucidate each other reciprocally.

18A Neo-Assyrian (ca. 8th century BCE) tablet from the city of Aššur preserves another anecdote regarding a fox which was driven away (Akkadian ṭarādu) from the city gates by dogs.³⁸ A Sumerian proverb expresses the underlying idea with epigrammatic concision: “In the city of no dog, the fox is overseer”.³⁹

19In Mesopotamian sources, the fox is associated with images of destruction. Foxes are often portrayed as making their lairs in the ruins of destroyed cities.⁴⁰ Moreover, evil forces are explicitly compared to foxes roaming the city during the night.⁴¹ Not surprisingly, then, the presence of a fox near the city gate or inside the city is considered a negative omen: e. g., “If a fox is repeatedly approaching the city gate, an enemy will take the city and it will be abandoned”.⁴²

20Omen texts also employ the topos of the contest between the dog and the fox, in which the dog represents the human sphere in general and in particular the city as the repository of order, while the fox represents the dangerous alien who brings forth unpredictable change and disruption in human social order. An omen from Šumma ālu Tablet 44 depicts a scenario in which the fox prevails over the dog: “If a fox chases away a dog, (there will be) diminution of the city, business will be lacking”.⁴³ The verb in the protasis, ṭarādu “to chase away”, is commonly used to describe the expulsion of enemies from the country, as well as the removal of curses, spells, and various kinds of ailments caused by evil demons. It is also used in the Series of the Fox and in the short fable from Aššur referred to above, but in these cases the subject of the verb is the dog, while the fox is the repulsed “evil”. The omen from Šumma ālu uses the same wording but the roles of the animals are inverted: the result can only be a negative omen for the city.

21Not all dogs are as friendly and helpful as the fox-chasing guard dogs discussed in the preceding paragraphs. From the 3rd millennium BCE onwards, we find incantations intended to protect travellers against the heel-biting dog lurking in ruins or behind the city gate and looking for its next victim. An Assyrian incantation from the 19th century BCE found in Anatolia is directed against a black dog representing a danger for travellers.⁴⁴ The text opens up with a description of the feared animal: “The black dog lurks on the ruin heap, it waits for the isolated caravan, its eyes peers around for the fair young man”.⁴⁵ A similar passage is preserved by a slightly younger Babylonian incantation: “The black dog is lurking! The smell has been wafted – two people are passing by the road”.⁴⁶ Black dogs are negative omens in divinatory texts. According to the first Tablet of the diagnostic series Sakikkû, if an exorcist on his way to his patient “sees either a black dog or a black pig”, the encounter does not bode well for the exorcist’s patient, “he will die”.⁴⁷

22Overall, greater weight is given in Mesopotamian literature to this type of canine, the quasi-feral, menacing ownerless scavenger dog, than to the guard dog. The reason for this perhaps unexpected phenomenon is ecological: the world of the Mesopotamian scribes is highly urbanized and the packs of scavenging dogs that make their appearance in the sources are a feature of an urban, rather than a rural, landscape. They roam through public spaces, such as streets and squares, and feed on carrion and left-overs. Scavenging dogs and pigs preying upon exposed little children in the streets was a fairly normal sight in Mesopotamia.⁴⁸ On the other hand, the horrific spectacle of public spaces strewn with unburied corpses preyed upon by dogs and pigs is often evoked in description of sieges,⁴⁹ where it epitomizes the traumatic collapse of collective social norms. The image is effectively used in curse formulae in texts from 1st millennium BCE Assyria:

Before your very eyes may dogs and swine drag the breasts of your young women and the penises of your young men to and fro in the squares of Assur. May the earth not receive your corpses but may your burial place be in the belly of a dog and a pig.⁵⁰

23The omens that describe packs of dogs gathering together, running and prowling in the streets, must be connected to this kind of dog and scenario. Some omens refer to disquieting noises, persistent howling and barking, coming from these packs. The pertinent predictions mention trouble, ruin, death, pestilence, and famine and are almost exclusively of a “public” nature, that is, they refer to the city or the state as a whole:

If dogs are numerous in the city, (this signifies) trouble for [the city].
If dogs are persistently gathering together and howling, (this signifies) abandonment of the city; or: downfall of […].
If dogs are persistently howling in the street, famine will afflict that city.
If dogs are persistently howling everywhere in the street, the city’s god will leave it.⁵¹

24Mesopotamians were struck by what they perceived as the unpredictability and aggressiveness of dogs. This theme finds clear expression in many omens in which dogs are said “to become rabid”; the correspondent apodoses, if preserved, envisage disaster for the city:

If dogs keep becoming rabid (Akkadian: šegû), (this signifies) dispersion (Akkadian: naspuḫtu) [of the (people of the) city].
If dogs become rabid and run madly in the street […].
If dogs become rabid and keep barking in the street […].
If dogs keep becoming rabid and attacking everywhere, (this signifies) dispersion (Akkadian: sapāḫu) of the (people of the) city.⁵²

25Many Sumerian and Akkadian texts deal with the topos of the mad or rabid dog (Akkadian kalbu šegû; Sumerian ur-mu₂-da, ur-idim), a repellent creature with foam at its mouth, snapping at all comers.⁵³ It is a state into which also human beings could fall, as we will see. The extremely negative image of packs of rabid dogs roving in the streets is expanded by a prophetic text from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I of Babylon (1125-1104 BCE), the so-called Marduk Prophecy, in which an epidemic of rabies is listed among disasters resulting from the god Marduk turning his back on his city Babylon. This event sets off a disruption of the world order:

I cut off the offerings to the temples, I caused gods of cattle and grain to go away to heaven. The goddess of fermentation sickened the land, the people’s corpses choked the gates. Brother consumed brother, comrade slew his comrade with a weapon. Free citizens spread out their hands (to beg off) the poor. Authority was restricted, injustice afflicted the land, rebellious kings diminished the land, lions cut off travel. Dogs w[ent ma]d and bit people. As many as they bit did not live but perished.⁵⁴

26The text describes the complete and shocking inversion and worst degradation of the normal behavior of gods, humans, and animals. The canine madness described in the final section of the citation matches the human one, which manifests itself in the images of friends killing one another and people eating the flesh of family members, cannibalism representing the most extreme form of aberrant behavior imaginable.⁵⁵ The apodoses of the omens mentioned earlier, which speak of a “dispersion of the (people of the) city” in connection with rabid dogs, probably refer to such an image: “If dogs keep becoming rabid and attacking everywhere, (this signifies) dispersion (Akkadian: sapāḫu) of the (people of the) city”.⁵⁶ The Akkadian verb used in the apodoses, sapāḫu, indicates “division”; it refers in this case to the dissociative behavior which is connected with madness and may result in dissolution of the social fabric.⁵⁷ Thus, we see that the image of packs of “mad” scavenging dogs, evokes – quite fittingly, were one to ask Thomas Hobbes – that of a community after the breakdown of the social contract.

27In analogy to the dog pack evoking society, the single dog can be used as a mirror image for a single human being. When omens refer to an individual dog whose acts relate to a single human individual, the default assumption is that the pair intended is a domestic dog and its master. Sometimes this is spelled out explicitly, and sometimes we can infer this from context, although omens occasionally state equally explicitly that the person in question is not the master of the dog. Here omens might be expected to draw even more strongly on the symbolic potential of the dog’s ambiguous position between the human and the bestial than was already the case for the dog packs discussed above. Consider these omens:

If a dog lifts his leg onto his master and defecates, his assets in […].
If a dog not (a man)’s own shows him affection, plays up to him, in front of him and behind him […].
If a dog is enraged and bites his master, (this signifies) difficulty […].
If a dog lies down on his bed, his god is angry with him.⁵⁸

28The associations tied to canine behaviour here are far-ranging. The smallest common denominator is that omen predictions derived from ominous dog behaviour are mostly “private” and concern the fortune of the man involved. The domestic dog, then, symbolically represents the domestic sphere. Additional triggers, that is, certain aspects of the behaviour taken into consideration by the omens, determine the exact form the association takes. Consider, for example, the following omen:

If a dog extinguishes a blazing fire (Akkadian: išāta napiḫta uballi) in a man’s house, there will be agreement in that house.⁵⁹

29To understand this omen, it is necessary to know that “blazing fire” could be used figuratively in Akkadian,⁶⁰ and that the dog is often associated with fire in divination. For instance, an omen from the physiognomic series Alamdimmû states: “If he has the face of a dog, his days will be short, fire will consume his property” (Tablet 8, omen 132).⁶¹ This is an obvious reference to its being considered aggressive and unamenable to reason. Thus, a dog extinguishing a flame quite naturally can come to be seen as a sign for the absence of conflict.

30We also find not infrequently the association between a man’s dog and a man’s wife, in particular in the context of sexual behaviour. Consider these omens:⁶²

If a dog slobbers drool in front of a man, (this signifies) divorce of husband and wife; dispersal of the man’s house.
If a dog scratches up dirt, (men) will have sex with the man’s wife; or: slander (Akkadian: ṭi-ip-lat^! libbi)⁶³ will befall that man.
If a dog digs in the dirt in front of a man and lies down, his wife is a serial adulteress (Akkadian: na-a-a-kàt).⁶⁴
[If a dog …] and extrudes his penis and it curls up, the owner’s wife will be caught (in flagrante delictu) with a man.
If a dog lies down in his chair, his wife will harry him unceasingly.

31One might say that in these omens, the dog invokes a woman, or rather, the dog owner’s wife, by the simple principle that one subservient member of the household stands in for another, along the lines of the argument made by the classicist Cristina Franco, discussed above (p. 91). This is exemplified by the last of the omens cited, in which the dog’s occupying of the man’s chair evokes the idea of the man’s wife falling out of her role and dominating her husband. The omen clearly reflects the social condemnation of illegitimate female agency.

32In the first three omens cited, the “female” association is triggered by an additional detail: the fact that the dog dirties itself or its owner – by rolling or digging in the mud or by drooling – is interpreted as the sexual pollution of the owner’s wife. Drool in particular is relevant here because of the frequent association between a dog’s dripping saliva and (dog or human) semen in Mesopotamian sources.⁶⁵ It is also associated symbolically with the concept of slander as “something unpleasant that comes out of the mouth”,⁶⁶ and slander in its turn is mentioned side by side with illicit sexual intercourse in the apodosis of the second omen cited. The common basis that causes the associative link between these two violations of the accepted norms of behaviour is certainly the fact that both undermine the social persona of the injured man (or “causes him to lose face”). The idea here is that the man’s wife is dirtied – polluted, tainted – by illicit sex or by slander, and that this obviously falls back on her man. The second omen cited is explicit in this respect. The first omen refers to this association only implicitly, it builds on the legal topos of divorce caused by allegations of a woman’s sexual misconduct.⁶⁷

33The close connection between adultery and slander, threats to the social fabric of the highest order, which is in evidence in these omens reappears in the Mesopotamian lexical tradition, as does the metaphorical connection of these two with spittle and drooling.⁶⁸ Vocabularies of human types, such as Lu-azlag, list the pertinent terms side by side: so we have, for example, the sequence “drooler, one who oozes spittle, fire stoker, deceiver, denouncer”.⁶⁹ The conceptual and possibly also intertextual connection with the omens from Šumma ālu is evident. This point is underscored by literary passages, where again the adulterer and the slanderer are put into one semantic category: the shamer, the tainter of reputations.⁷⁰

34Returning to our omens, the rule of similitude connecting protasis and apodosis in Mesopotamian omen lists, suggests that in the first four omens cited illicit sexual activity is attributed to a woman as a “canine” lapse in decorum.⁷¹ I will now show that sexual incontinence is but one aspect – albeit an important one – of a range of socially unacceptable types of behaviour that can be censured in humans, and in particular in women, as “dog-like”. The underlying values are based on the parallelism between dogs and women as inferior members of the patriarchal household: they inform many of our omens, but also other genres of cuneiform literature.

35Dogs are not only aggressive and unpredictable, they are also greedy, insincere, ungrateful, and do not know their place in the order of things. A number of Sumerian proverbs from the early Old Babylonian period (ca. 1900-1800 BCE) centre on the dog and offer pointed vignettes of its character. One makes reference to its uncouth behaviour: “The dog licks its shriveled penis with its tongue”.⁷² Another declares: “A dog knows ʽTake it!᾽ It does not know ʽPut it down!᾽”.⁷³ A third proverb deals with the motif of the greediness of dogs: “A dog was going to a party. After he had seen the bones, he went away. ʽWhere I am going, I will be eating more than this᾽”.⁷⁴ Moreover, proverbs show that dogs are not only highly sexed, as is also demonstrated by the fact that the dog is often referred to as an example to be aspired to in potency incantations,⁷⁵ they are also sexually shameless: “A dog came to a brothel and said: ʽOne can’t see anything, let me open this᾽”.⁷⁶

36In humans, reliability and self-control are core-values expected from “good society” according to Mesopotamian didactic literature, as are humility and a clear grasp of social norms and hierarchies:⁷⁷ all of these are values the dog, its closeness to humans notwithstanding, is ostensibly lacking. Not surprisingly then, “dog” is an insult. A collection of female insults to be used as apt rhetorical phrases in debates and diatribes⁷⁸ includes “small shitting dog”⁷⁹ and “mad dog”⁸⁰. The Sumerian composition known as A Father and his Wayward Son, a rambling address by a father to his son abounding in exhortations and rebukes, contains a long enumeration of insults including “dog, with the head pressed to the ground, sniffing, mendacious” and “dog, licking its penis with its tongue”:⁸¹ both images refer to the dog’s lack of restraint. Equally insulting and humiliating are the epithets “he is a good seed of a dog” and “son of a dog” from an Old Babylonian Sumerian diatribe.⁸² In the Sumerian composition Curse of Agade the “otherness” of the barbaric Gutians is marked by their beastlike characteristics, they are said to have “the brains of a dog and the features of a monkey”⁸³; elsewhere in the Sumerian literature, the epithet “dog-mindedness” is attributed to the Amorites.⁸⁴

37A variant of the use of “dog” as an insult is found in cases in which men use the word as an autodesignation. This occurs in particular in letters sent to superiors.⁸⁵ The image is ambiguous: the “dog” implied might sometimes be the faithful guard-dog, but expansions of the topos such as “I am a dead dog…” suggest that a hyperbolic self-abasement of the writer vis-à-vis the superior is intended: “dead dogs” are worthless.

38“Canine” behaviour is very frequently attributed to, and censured in, men, but it is undeniable that when applied to women, the dog image appears particularly appropriate to the Mesopotamian (male) mind: the range of negative characteristics typically attributed to the female sex overlap to a wide degree with those censored in the dog.

39An excellent “proverbial” illustration of the point we are driving at here comes from a letter of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (680-669 BCE) written in Babylonian in which the king addresses a political faction in the city of Babylon engaged in a legal conflict with another, pro-Assyrian party there.⁸⁶ The king denies the legal rights of the “non-Babylonians” he writes to by likening them to a dog turning against its owner: “The potter’s dog, when it entered the kiln, started barking at the potter” (obv. l. 4-6; Akkadian: kalbu ša paḫḫāri ina libbi utūni kī īrubu ana libbi paḫḫāri unambaḫ). After referring to the unjustified (obv. l. 10; Akkadian: dibbī lā dibbī) but apparently successful legal claims brought forward by the “non-Babylonians” against the pro-Assyrian party, the same theme of rising above one’s station and turning against one’s betters is expressed by another proverb: “At the gate of the courthouse, the statement of a perjured woman is stronger than her husband’s” (obv. l. 14-15; Akkadian: sinniltu ḫaṭītu ina bāb dajjāni pāša alla ša mutiša dān). From a rhetorical view-point, the king first likens the addressees to a dog, and then to a woman, and the addressees’ claims are presented as either the barking of a dog or the lies of a woman in court: a parallel use of the charges of “animalisation” and “effeminisation” for devaluating the “other” that is typical of Assyrian mentality.⁸⁷ The qualities the dog and the woman and the addressees share are hubris, litigiousness, and an unwillingness to accept one’s rightful station.

40This misogynistic topos is older than the first millennium. It can be traced back to compositions from the early 2nd millennium BCE, especially didactic compositions produced in the context of the male-dominated scribal school (Edubba’a).⁸⁸ These texts, in particular dialogues among women hurling insults at one another, describe women as quarrelsome, treacherous, intrusive, given to intrigue, shameless, devoid of honour, lacking a clear understanding of social obligations and hierarchies, and incapable of self-control in sexual matters.⁸⁹ The propensity of women to spread malicious gossip is implied by a number of phrases focusing on sexual slander:

Why did you slander the daughter of a gentleman, your equal, saying ʽProstitute!᾽ and causing her husband to divorce her?⁹⁰
Rouser of trouble, you deceive the men of the city; the young women living in the neighbourhood cannot sleep because of you.⁹¹
Among them (your neighbours) you always kindle strife.⁹²

41These texts focus on women’s role and character from a male perspective. By criticizing one another’s crimes and shortcomings, the female contestants promote a model of femininity which essentially corresponds to that of the humble and faithful wife, and the diligent and caring housewife.⁹³ Sexual slander is a recurrent topic in these texts, because adultery is seen as damaging to the reputation of the male. Since women are associated with the domestic sphere, a typical reproach levelled against them is that of roaming about in public spaces, such as the city’s streets and squares:

(You are) perpetually standing about in the city squares, and constantly prowling around in the streets.⁹⁴
Alone you stand around in the marketplace, hurling insults.⁹⁵
She is constantly entering all houses, she is craning her neck in each and every street.⁹⁶

42Streets and squares are the most common haunts of prostitutes in Mesopotamia, together with the brothel (“tavern”),⁹⁷ and various sources confirm an association between prowling around and prostitution.⁹⁸ These phrases reveal a culture-specific representation of women as prone to mischief, excessively talkative, naturally intrusive, impertinent, unable to behave or to show restraint. Not surprisingly then, if associated with men, prowling around in the streets is considered a sign of degrading feminisation.⁹⁹ Additional insults directed against women can be cited to underscore the fact that the wide range of typically feminine failings and weaknesses mentioned above was seen as representative of women’s “canine nature”:

Sniffing dog entering all houses.¹⁰⁰
Bitch, with lifted paws you [run after] men. The young men living in the neighbour- hood cannot sleep because of you.¹⁰¹
If anyone did not know your behaviour, they would see your fine appearance, see your beautiful face, and they would say, ʻAn (excellent) personʼ. However, your intelligence is that of a monkey, your understanding is that of a dog.¹⁰²

43In conclusion then, the fact that for ancient Mesopotamians, dogs and women were quite close to each other with respect to their shortcomings evinces with great clarity both from divinatory sources and from parallels drawn from other genres of cuneiform literature. Like dogs, women were to be subservient, ideally, but were expected to be constitutionally unable to control their “animal instincts”: this very fact is of course fundamental for the culture-specific justification of female subservience. Whenever women acquired agency beyond the expected level, the face of their men was threatened, and explicit negative value judgements were expressed. More generally, it can be shown that the way dogs are evoked in the divinatory sources is predicated on their standing for (aspects or sectors of) human society. We conclude this section with a particularly revealing omen apodosis in which it is said that women will “go mad” and kill their husbands:

If a flood of beer is seen in the city’s moat, married women will become rabid/mad (Akkadian: iššegâ) and slay their husbands.¹⁰³

44The verb used in the apodosis, Akkadian šegû, is the same that is used in other omens (see above) for dogs that become rabid and bite men and in particular their masters: the underlying image is the same, namely that of an overturn of the normal social hierarchy.¹⁰⁴ The choice of the verb – women becoming literally “rabid” – is a neat inversion of the pattern we see generally in divinatory literature regarding animals. While normally animals “stand for” humans, here it is humans who become animals: another proof for the conceptual closeness between women and dogs.

The pig in Ancient Mesopotamian omens

45We have seen the dog, as a quasi-human, function as an integral, useful, and valued part of human society and human economy (in the etymological sense of the world), while being, at the same time, external to them, owing to its bestial characteristics (its ferocity, it rampaging, uncontrolled aggression and lack of restraint) that it shares with wild animals. The ambiguity of this cultural representation renders the dog an effective means of reflection on the relationship with subordinates, inferiors, and others/enemies. A similar argument can be made for the pig, which is frequently associated with the dog in omen texts.¹⁰⁵ The fact that the domestic pig shares many characteristics with the dog is owed to their common urban habitat.

46In the most general terms, the domestic pig in omen literature evokes the household. This is also true for the domestic dog. However, while the latter animal’s characteristics often prompt associations that have to do with trouble and strife in the domestic sphere, the pig (and in particular the sow), being economically much more valuable than the dog as well as sexually potent and fairly fecund, tends to be associated with prosperity, or the lack thereof.¹⁰⁶ This concept is frequently present in behavioural omens regarding the sow. Consider these examples:

If a sow gives birth to (only) one (piglet), her owner will die; that house will be dispersed; the offspring of the cattle will not prosper.
If there is a sow that does not give birth in a man’s house, the house of her owner will experience severe evil.
If a sow gives birth to ten (piglets), the land’s harvest will prosper; her owner will become rich.¹⁰⁷
If a pig eats in a man’s house, the man’s household will lack food in the future.¹⁰⁸

47A sow giving birth to only one piglet or not giving birth at all suggest a negative outcome, which turns into a positive one as soon as the omen protasis deals with an average pig litter. In the last omen cited, another characteristic behavioural trait of the pig, its proverbial voraciousness, is exploited for omen generation.¹⁰⁹

48The household association of the pig is often narrowed down to the female sphere. The association “pig” – “female member of a household” is productive in behavioural and teratomantic omens when triggered by additional associative links:

If a pig enters inside a bedroom, a captive woman will enter the house of its owner.
If a pig defecates in front of a man, the man’s wife will have (illicit) sex.
If a pig repeatedly opens its mouth in front of a man, they will repeatedly have sex with his wife.¹¹⁰
If a sheep gives birth to a lion and (the malformed birth) has a pig’s face, the queen will die.¹¹¹

49In the third omen, a pig continually opening its mouth in front of a man is associated with the illicit sexual activity of the man’s wife. A late (Hellenistic) commentator explains the association between the protasis and the apodosis of this omen by remarking that there is a link between the Akkadian words pû “mouth”, šuḫḫu “anus”, and ūru “woman’s vagina”, since all are represented by the Sumerian logogram múrub: this is obviously a rationalization for a visual image based on one opening of the body suggesting another.¹¹² In the last omen cited, the birth of a lion by a sheep points the interpretation of the sign towards the royal sphere:¹¹³ the fact that the “lion” has the face of a pig indicates that this negative omen regards the queen herself – as the female member of the king’s household par excellence.

50We have seen that dogs and pigs symbolically represent gender relations in Mesopotamia’s male dominated society, much as was the case in ancient Greece. However, I would argue that, at least in omen literature, this is simply one aspect of the domestic animals’ being a symbolic representation of the household as a whole, every component part of which – human, animal and inanimate – is in the final analysis the property of the male pater familias. For Mesopotamians, the domestic animal was apparently an ideal vehicle to express the hierarchical structure of the patrimonial household.

51In this light, it is not surprising that the symbolic potential of domestic animals – close to “us” – “us” being male members of the élite – but still clearly different, and inferior – was used to map also another type of social hierarchy onto the animal world: the distinction between élites and lowly workers. This mapping opens up for us a window into an aspect of ancient Mesopotamian mentality that is rarely visible elsewhere. Consider these two omens:

If pigs run around lively in the main street, (this signifies) rising of [wind], or: calling up of (corvée labourers wielding) spade and basket (for carrying bricks and earth).¹¹⁴
If dogs run around lively in the street, (this signifies) calling up of (corvée labourers wielding) spade and basket (for carrying bricks and earth).¹¹⁵

52In these omens, the bustling activity of free-range pigs and dogs in the public square comes to evoke the busy toing and froing of corvée labourers. Gatherings of workers employed on public building projects were an extremely common occurrence in ancient Mesopotamian societies. In referring to such forced labour, “official sources” such as royal inscriptions underline the harmonious climate on the work site and the great care that is given by the authorities to the proper and abundant provisioning of the workers:

Women did not carry baskets, only the top warriors did the building for him (= the king); the whip did not strike, the leather strap did not strike; mother did not hit her child; the general, the colonel, the captain, (and) the conscript, they (all) shared work equally; the supervision indeed was (like) soft wool in their hands.¹¹⁶

53Reality was of course different: archival sources contain abundant references to badly fed, unclad workers fleeing the work site whenever an opportunity arose. While the official image suggests society-wide participation in these efforts, well-to-do and privileged households could buy themselves out of the corvée obligation or could hire substitutes: usually poor members of urban society. Physical involvement in actual corvée labour, then, demonstrably marked a social distinction.¹¹⁷ Our omens are interesting for the insight they give into the value judgements that accompanied this distinction: implicitly, corvée labourers are likened to pigs and dogs.

54The Hellenistic commentary mentioned above (n. 112) discusses the first of our two omens, spelling out the underlying association between the confused activity of pigs (or dogs, in the parallel) and the bustle of corvée labourers of low status. The text quotes the omen verbatim and then adds (obv. l. 3): “(it means) to sleep/lie down where the pig (sleeps)¹¹⁸, (as in:) ʻFor doing your work, you shall sleep/lie down li[ke a pigʼ”. The commentary draws on the image of the pig lying or wallowing in mud, which is well attested in cuneiform sources, and thereby offers an unflattering image of the corvée labourers: these men are likened to pigs wallowing in mud.¹¹⁹ Several sources prove the degrading nature of the comparison. “A pig spattered with mud” is an insult in Sumerian.¹²⁰ A popular saying preserved on a Neo-Assyrian tablet from Aššur deals with the behaviour of pigs. Its incipit reads as follows:

The [dirt]y pig has no sense. It lie[s in fil]th, eating food (…) The pig is unholy [... bespat]tering his backside, making the street smell, [pol]luting the houses. The pig is not fit for the temple, is not a man with understanding, is not allowed to tread on pavements, an abomination to all gods.¹²¹

55The association with the pig may have come very naturally to the Hellenistic commentator, as the term for “corvée labourer” in his period was “mud labourer” (Akkadian epiš dulli ṭiṭṭi). In his commentary, he refers explicitly to the metonymy underlying the omen (spade and basket representing the workers), using “mud” as the tertium comparationis between the pig and the wielders of spade and basket. ¹²²We can deduce from all of this that the lower strata of society from which the workforce for corvée was recruited were seen figuratively as the “pigs and dogs” of society.¹²³ This conclusion can be supported by some additional evidence from the 1st millennium. Perhaps most evocative is the case of an unfortunate female serf drafted for hard labour service in a temple household.¹²⁴ She is denounced by her co-workers to the temple officials for having beaten to death a dog, for no apparent reason:

On the 22nd of Ayyaru of the first year of Cambyses, king of Babylon, king of all the lands, Mīṣātu, a female serf of Ištar of Uruk, took a lump of clay in our presence and beat a dog with it.

56Upon being questioned, she states:

We asked her: ‘Why are you beating the dog?’, and she replied ‘I would like to be as dead as the dog.’ The dog she beat died of the beating.

57It is not hard to see in her act and her statement an expression of veiled auto-aggression born out of desperation: essentially, she identifies with the dog.

58The lower classes, then, form a lesser form of humanity in the view-point of the dominant stratum of society that has produced our texts. They are placed in the same “liminal” category as those valuable, but still bestial, members, of the household, dogs and pigs – and, at least to some degree, women.

59We may have here a rare window into Mesopotamian mentality that should be cherished, not only because of its rarity, but also because we may be dealing with an extremely deep-rooted cultural phenomenon. This, at least, is suggested by evidence that comes from the very beginning of writing, from the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 3rd millennium BCE. The so-called “Archaic Texts” from the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia – the earliest texts we have – include numerous lists of herded animals, such as swine.¹²⁵ It has been shown that the format for contemporary lists of dependent workers and their families is the same as that of the animal herding texts: specialists speak of “herded humans”.¹²⁶ In this light, the de-humanisation, the “animalisation”, of dependent humans, seems to have been at the very roots of Mesopotamian civilisation.

60In conclusion, the use of animal imagery for the expression of hierarchies and distinctions in human society pervades all genres of Mesopotamian writing and literature, but none so much as omen literature. The numerous, and long, pertinent sections of the divinatory compendia should be seen not as sources of objective information on the animal world in ancient Mesopotamia, but as bestiaria shedding light on how animals and their behaviour were conceptionalised, and judged, in the image of man.