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A Manichaean fragment on birds (1)

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Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list) Bird Omens 05 Scientific knowledge and scholarly lore 05.02 Omen interpretation 05.02.02 Terrestrial omens (Šumma ālu) 05.02.02.04 Bird Omens Birds 02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs 02.05 Animal/theriomorphic symbols and iconographic motifs 02.05.02 Birds	Keywords birds Manichaeism omens
Period Sasanid Empire	Channel Manichaean texts

Text
Manichaean Middle Persian Texts (M556):
The Manichaean Middle Persian fragment M556 reports a mantic scheme focused on the bird divination, borrowed from the Mesopotamian pattern of a similar omen series. One omen reads: “The twelfth omen: if a strange bird of the steppe or of the sea sits before one’s face … “ According to the editors the Manichaenan omens are very similar to those preserved in the Mesopotamian series Šumma ālu.

Source (list of abbreviations)
Manichaean Middle Persian Texts (M556)

Bibliography

Reck and Sundermann 1997, 17

Reck, Ch. and W. Sundermann. “Ein illustrierter mittelpersischer manichäischer Omen-Text aus Turfan.” Zentralasiatische Studien 27 (1997) 7-23.

Andrea Piras

URL for this entry: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0000808.php

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