Haruspex

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Diagram of the sheep's liver found near Piacenza with Etruscan inscriptions on the bronze sheep's Liver of Piacenza
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In the religion of ancient Rome, a haruspex^[a] was a person trained to practise a form of divination called haruspicy,^[b] the inspection of the entrails^[c] of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry. Various ancient cultures of the Near East, such as the Babylonians, also read omens specifically from the liver, a practice also known by the Greek term hepatoscopy (also hepatomancy).

The Roman concept is directly derived from Etruscan religion, as one of the three branches of the disciplina Etrusca. Such methods continued to be used well into the Middle Ages, especially among Christian apostates and pagans.

The Latin terms haruspex and haruspicina are from an archaic word, hīra = "entrails, intestines" (cognate with hernia = "protruding viscera" and hira = "empty gut"; PIE *ǵʰer-) and from the root spec- = "to watch, observe". The Greek ἡπατοσκοπία hēpatoskōpia is from hēpar = "liver" and skop- = "to examine".
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