ittu

Definition

Ittu (a feminine noun; in Sumerian (g)iskim) is the Akkadian word for an "ominous sign" — the observed thing, whether in the sky, on earth, in a dream, in the body, or in a ritual, that the Mesopotamian divinatory system reads as a divine hint about events to come. The ittu is the sign itself, the indication side of the omen, kept distinct from the apodosis, the outcome it predicts, and from the protasis-apodosis text unit that records the pair. It is one of the foundational words of the cuneiform omen corpus.

In Tradition

Hunger and Pingree open their omen chapter with the term: "These indications were called 'signs', in Sumerian (g)iskim, in Akkadian ittu." Rochberg argues, on the basis of word-forms, that ittu is the implied feminine subject of the stative verbs in TCL 6 13 obv. ii 1-4 — so the attributes there describe signs, not planets. Koch-Westenholz frames the term theologically: signs may be "willed divine communications — or they may be seen as signs (ittu) without any sender."

In Practice

For source-critical work, treat ittu as the working Mesopotamian word for a celestial sign — and treat the Akkadian-Sumerian pairing ittu / (g)iskim as a marker that you are in a primary-source omen context wherever it turns up. The doctrine of ittu-meḫer, the "counterbalancing sign" — Koch-Westenholz, drawing on Hunger's SAA 10 corpus — preserves the Mesopotamian principle that one favourable sign can cancel out an unfavourable one. This was an interpretive tool the ṭupšar Enūma Anu Enlil reached for when conflicting omens fell together. Hunger and Pingree insist that the ittu is "not an absolute cause of a coming event, but a warning"; the namburbî protective ritual is built on exactly this assumption — that the predicted outcome is conditional, and can be deflected, in keeping with the Mesopotamian theology of a fate that is divinely decreed yet still ritually negotiable.

Historical Origin

Ittu is attested across Akkadian-Sumerian cuneiform omen-literature from the Old Babylonian period through the Late Babylonian and Hellenistic eras: the Sargonid Letters and Reports (SAA 8 and SAA 10), Enūma Anu Enlil, Šumma izbu, Šumma ālu, and Sa.gig. Modern critical treatments include Hunger and Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia (1999); Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing (2004); and Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology (1995).

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia
• Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
• Ulla Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology