Dripping divination in pre-Islamic South Arabia: The oracle sanctuary of Jār al-Labbā revisited

Abstract

Since Halévy first published the Jār al-Labbā texts (CIH 460–466), their difficult terminology combined with the poor quality of the text copies has inhibited scholarly consensus and no systematic study of them has been undertaken since Beeston’s 1949 treatment. Here, I provide an up-to-date study of these inscriptions, including CIH 970 and the recently published FB-Jawf 1, which also come from the same site. I propose that Jār al-Labbā was an oracular sanctuary known as “the domain of ʿAṯtar” from where several oracular stick inscriptions claim to originate. I further connect the enigmatic √ḎQṬ-ritual in the Jār al-Labbā texts with Syriac zqt “to goad, direct”, the etymology which denotes an ongoing oracular relationship with the god ʿAṯtar from whom the individuals “receive direction.” This ritual seems to have involved sacrifice and the manipulation of liquids (probably blood) to produce oracles, a practice attested elsewhere in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.