390 FISH IX OFFERINGS, AUGURIES, ETC. 



Arabia (as witness Mohammed's command against the use of 

 arrows, " an abomination of Satan's work ! ")^ more frequently 

 than in Babylonia. There it attained but secondary importance. 

 The general method required the shaking or shuffling before 

 the image or the sacred place of the deity of a set of arrows. 

 In the temple of Mecca the three important arrows were named, 

 The Commanding, The Forbiddmg, The Waiting. 



Hepatoscopy : the liver among the Assyrians, the Jews, 2 

 the Greeks, and the Etruscans, 3 contested with the heart the 

 honour of being the central organ of life. Its convulsive move- 

 ments, when taken from the sacrificed victim, gave warnings of 

 the future. So sacred was the liver held in Israel, that eating 

 it was forbidden : it had to be returned to the Giver of Life.^ 



Fish were early utilised for the calendar of the year. The 

 signs of the Zodiac showing Pisces, possibly derived from 

 connection with the god of water, and Scorpio, possibly 

 representing one of the Crustacea, date back to c. 3000 b.c.^ 



out that it meant originally " I pick up " or " collect " (the arrows of divination) 

 and so both read and declare the will of heaven. See O. Schrader, Prehistoric 

 Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, trans. F. B. Jevons (London, 1890), p. 279. 



* Koran, Sur. v. 92. 

 2 Proverbs, vii. 23. 



* See, e.g. C. Thulin, Die Gpiter des Martiamis Capella und der Bronzelebev 

 von Piacenza, Gieszen, 1906. 



* Ency. Bibl., p. 11 18. 



* According to Langdon, Tammiiz and Ishtar (op. cit.), p. 47, " Nina, a 

 water deity, was identified at an early date with the constellation, Scorpio ; for 

 this reason her brother Ningirsu, also a water deity, was identified with one 

 of the stars of Scorpio." 



