LUWIAN RELIGION, A RESEARCH PROJECT: THE CASE OF “HITTITE” AUGURY Alice Mouton and Ian Rutherford If we aim to understand the relation between Anatolian and Aegean cul- ture, and the position of Luwian culture or Luwic cultures within it, we can hardly avoid taking into account religion, which was a large part of these cultures and also makes up an even larger part of the surviving evi- dence for them. The aim of this paper is to explore one type of religious practice well attested in both Anatolian and Aegean sources, which can be argued to have a special connection with the Luwian sphere. The reli- gious practice in question is augury or ornithomancy, the practice of divi- nation through observing the movement of birds. The practice of augury is attested in many different religious traditions and from many periods. Interpretations of bird omens are attested in the Akkadian Šumma Ālu-texts, the earliest examples of which are Old Baby- lonian (early 2nd millennium BC).1 However, the first records of a system- atic augural technique seem to be those from the Hittite archives of later 2nd millennium.2 From the 1st millennium BC we have traces of augury among the Greeks,3 but much more evidence from Roman Italy, perhaps deriving from Etruria.4 In the Middle Ages augury was one of a number of forms of divination of interest to Arabs.5 Over the last century and a half augury has been documented in many pre-industrial societies,6 and a form particularly reminiscent of ancient augury has been documented among the Iban and Berawan peoples of Borneo.7 To some extent, these 1 Freedman 1998: 1.13; Weisberg 1969. 2 On Hittite augury, the best general introduction is now Haas 2008: 27–47; still impor- tant is Archi 1975. 3 On Greek augury in general, Dillon 1996, Collins 2002, Burkert 2005; the older stud- ies of Bouché-Leclercq 1879–82: vol. 1. 127–145 and Halliday 1913: 246–271 and 277–282 are still useful. 4 On Roman augury, see Linderski 1986 and Rüpke 2005. 5 On Arabic ornithomancy (‘iyafa or ilm al-tira), see the excellent study of Fahd 1966: 431–450; Fahd 1978; an early reference to Arab ornithomancy in the Egyptian Delta it in the Greek historian Appian, fr. 19 (referred to by Hopf 1888: 5–6). 6 Some references can be found in the very out-of-date survey of Hopf 1888: 39–51. 7 For the augury of the Iban, see Freeman 1961, Richards 1972, King 1977; that of the Berawan, Metcalf 1976. Hose/McDougall 1912 were struck by similarities between the 329-344_Mouton et al_f16.indd 329 3/14/2013 7:52:41 PM