Power of Diviners

Whenever an important decision needed to be taken, the kings first consulted the oracles. It is clear that a great deal of attention was heeded to the oracles as major decisions were taken or shot down based on what the oracles said. With the extreme influence diviners had in the decision-making process of the kings of the ancient Near East, it is highly likely they swayed many decisions favorable to themselves as well.

Just as kings had different types of power they wielded on the people, diviners had a type of power they could use on the king. Diviners had a sense of ideological power, because they could explain the world around the individuals. The diviners knew what regular people didn’t know and in this way they were ranked higher than the rest. Their power of knowledge separated them from others, and gave them a high-standing in the decision-making process. In this way, diviners could influence decisions the way they wanted to be played out, and this was beneficial to them, especially if they were rulers too, such as the diviner Aqba-Hammu, as Mieroop says is the ruler of Qattara. The diviners played an influential role in “all matters of state and military actions” (116) so a military tactic the diviners wanted could occur just by the message they gave the kings.

However, only professional diviners observed unusual signs and analyzed what the future events were to be, based on the signs. So, there is always that question of what makes them professional. It could be the eloquent-ness and and persuasion of their speech or how loyal they are to their king. Nevertheless, there was probably no sure-fire way of knowing back then which diviners were just trying to benefit themselves, and which were actually analyzing the signs correctly, and if there even was a correct way.