Divinazione e intertestualità : la serie divinatoria shumma izbu e il suo orizzonte culturale

The present study presents an analysis and partial re-edition of the Mesopotamian divinatory series "Shumma izbu", "If an Anomaly". The edition is based on hundreds of published and unpublished manuscripts written on clay tablets that were studied in the British Museum. The new material has allowed numerous textual improvements over Erle Leichty's magisterial editio princeps of 1970. The main part of the study offers a synthesis on the diachronic development of the series and on its contextualization as well as a synchronic analysis of the canonical version's structure and its literary and rhetorical forms. This lead to the identification of the hermeneutical principles employed in this form of Mesopotamian divination - principles that can be shown to be deeply rooted in the continuum of Ancient Mesopotamian literature and thought.