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How were dice and knucklebones used to tell fortunes?
Astragalomancy is divination with knucklebones (astragali), thrown and read by the side that lands up. Practitioners marked bones with names, letters or numbers, and later used dice in place of bones. Sources connect the practice to Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Near Eastern sites.
Facts checked on against 14 sources, 5 of them museum, university, archive, library, government or primary texts.
Key facts
Every line comes from a source listed at the bottom of the page. The small numbers point to it.
| c. 1800 BC | One of the earliest game boards using astragali came from the tomb of Reny-Soube at Thebes, which David dates to about this time.1 |
|---|---|
| 1225–1075 BC | Astragali from Cypriot and Kition sites of this date are interpreted by Reese and by Gilmour as used in astragalomancy.1 |
| 4th to 2nd centuries BCE | The Hellenistic settlement at Maresha in southern Israel, where large numbers of inscribed astragali were found.23 |
| 49 BC | Julius Caesar used the phrase 'The die is cast' when crossing the Rubicon, a saying that later writers have linked to the use of dice.45 |
What the practice was
Astragalomancy is the name for divination using knucklebones. In the historic period the bones were marked with names of gods and goddesses, other words, and numbers, and were thrown so that the result could be read.6
The bones were usually thrown into the air, and the result was read mainly by which mark ended up on top.7
Later forms used dice in place of bones, and the numbers attached to letters were combined into words that answered the diviner's questions.8
The sides of the bone were valued differently. Pausanias's description of a classical Greek divination used five astragali and a tablet that explained the outcome of the combined numbers.19
Maresha and Cetamura
At Maresha, astragali were found in large concentrations in specific caves, and near a small altar with wall etchings, which suggests a ritual context of divination.210
Some Maresha astragali were shaved, perforated or filled with lead to roll more effectively, and some bearing words such as Robber, Stop! and You are burnt likely served as gaming dice.103
The Cetamura excavators found 168 astragali in Well #1 from sheep or goats, pigs and boars, cows and deer, with the highest concentrations in the Etruscan levels. Most were not modified, and the absence of enough related bones argues for their use in divination rather than as food debris.11
Dice, games and the link to chance
Herodotus related that the Lydians invented the game during a famine, and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica states that knucklebones were a primitive form of dice.1213
In the second form of the game, pure chance decided the outcome: the bones were thrown from the hand or a cup onto a table, and the values of the sides that fell uppermost were counted. Four astragali could produce 35 different scores, and the highest throw in Greece, 40, was the Euripides.1213
Dandoy distinguishes divination from gaming by whether the interpretation of the outcome is left to the one who casts the objects; when all participants know the interpretations in advance, divination reverts to gaming.1
What the tradition holds
How practitioners describe it, in their terms. Described, not endorsed.
Babylonian omens, recorded on an Old Babylonian tablet (YOS 10 47), dealt with inspecting the astragali of sacrificed sheep in extispicy, and treated perforations or extra bones in the ankle as favourable or unfavourable.9
Among the Greeks, dice were made from sheep knucklebones, and rolling them was connected with Athena and Hermes. Later Roman writers described Mercury as the patron of dice throwers.4
Susnow suggested that the Abel Beth Maacah amphora may have been shaken so that one or a few perforated astragali came out, with the perforation giving the answer to the diviner's inquiry.9
What the evidence shows
What historians, scientists and controlled tests have found.
Maresha inscriptions name gods associated with human wishes, including Hera, Aphrodite, Eros, Hermes and Nike, and astragali bearing these names were found in what the team regarded as worshipful contexts with a small altar.106
Some Maresha astragali were found alongside pottery sherds inscribed with Aramaic incantations or questions about the future, which the researchers said indicated their use in cleromancy and other forms of divination.14
Perry-Gal said that during the Roman and Hellenistic periods astragali were used a lot in divination, including at Maresha, and that the large number of astragali there was unusual.6
Worked out from the evidence
Not stated outright by any one source. It is worked out from the sources cited.
- The evidence from Maresha and Cetamura points to astragalomancy as a practice tied to particular places, with some bones made for play and others set aside in ritual contexts.2101114
- The line between divination and gaming was often thin, since the same bones and dice could serve both purposes depending on who interpreted the result.16
Not yet confirmed
- How closely did the dice-based forms of the practice in later centuries follow the older bone-based methods?
- Why were astragali deposited in graves, house foundations and wells in some sites but not others?
Sources
Museums, universities, archives and primary texts first. Every fact is paraphrased and nothing is copied; Wikipedia is never cited.
- tota.world: Integrating Zooarchaeology Chapter 16: Astragali through Time | TOTA. Read on · Reference
- tandfonline.com: Gaming and divination in the Hellenistic Levant: the case study of the astragalus assemblage from Maresha, Israel: Levant: Vol 54, No 1. Read on · Peer-reviewed journal
- biblicalarchaeology.org: Board Games and Divination in Hellenistic Israel. Read on · Reference
- thewitchsanddruidsden.com: Astragalomancy (Modern) – The Witch's and Druids Den. Read on · Reference
- imperiumromanum.pl: "The dice have been cast" « IMPERIUM ROMANUM. Read on · Reference
- haaretz.com: Huge Number of Knucklebones for Prophecy and Games Discovered in Biblical Maresha - Archaeology. Read on · Reference
- museumofcambridge.org.uk: Folklore Finds: Astragali, or Knucklebones – Museum of Cambridge. Read on · Museum
- encyclopedia.com: Astragalomancy | Encyclopedia.com. Read on · Reference
- thetorah.com: The Astragali of Abel Beth Maacah - TheTorah.com. Read on · Reference
- smithsonianmag.com: Israeli Archaeologists Uncover Hundreds of Ancient Dice Used for Divination—and Gaming. Read on · Museum
- museum.cetamuradelchianti.com: Astragali – Museum – Cetamura del Chianti. Read on · Museum
- en.wikisource.org: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Knucklebones - Wikisource, the free online library. Read on · Library
- kids.kiddle.co: Knucklebones facts for kids. Read on · Reference
- the-past.com: Knucklebones used for gaming and divination found in Israel – The Past. Read on · Reference