page_title: Astragalomancy
hierarchical_section_title: Astragalomancy
caption_attribution_description: Pastern bones of an animal, for games like Knucklebones / Jacks
context_page_description: Astragalomancy, also known as astragyromancy, is a form of divination that uses dice specially marked with letters or numbers.
  Originally, as with dice games, the "dice" were knucklebones or other small bones of quadrupeds. Marked astragali of sheep and goats are common at Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeological sites, particularly at funeral and religious locations. For example, marked astragali have been found near the altar of Aphrodite Ourania in Athens, Greece, suggesting astragalomancy was performed near the altar after about 500 BC.
  Also known as cleromancy, the practice of contacting divine truth via random castings of dice or bones stretches back before recorded history. The Metropolitan Museum of Art displayed bone "dice" used by the Shona people of southern Africa.
  They have been in use for thousands of years, and remain extant.
  Since astragalomancy is a form of sortition, numbers are scrawled into the dice; the numbers are associated with letters, thus bearing on the questions of the diviner. The diviner then casts the dice, resulting in a random sequence of numbers.
context_section_description: Astragalomancy, also known as astragyromancy, is a form of divination that uses dice specially marked with letters or numbers.
  Originally, as with dice games, the "dice" were knucklebones or other small bones of quadrupeds. Marked astragali (talus bones) of sheep and goats are common at Mediterranean and Near Eastern archaeological sites, particularly at funeral and religious locations. For example, marked astragali have been found near the altar of Aphrodite Ourania in Athens, Greece, suggesting astragalomancy was performed near the altar after about 500 BC.
  Also known as cleromancy, the practice of contacting divine truth via random castings of dice or bones stretches back before recorded history. The Metropolitan Museum of Art displayed bone "dice" (hakata) used by the Shona people of southern Africa.
  They have been in use for thousands of years, and remain extant.
  Since astragalomancy is a form of sortition, numbers are scrawled into the dice; the numbers are associated with letters, thus bearing on the questions of the diviner. The diviner then casts the dice, resulting in a random sequence of numbers. The diviner interprets this sequence according to certain rules – usually rules specific to his/her religion (e.g. Buddhism).
  Astragalomancy is considered the twin of pessomancy (also known as psephomancy) – another act of divination which uses colored or marked pebbles as opposed to numbered dice. These pebbles are either thrown out of a bag after shuffling or drawn from the bag at random. The interpretation of the colors or symbols relate to issues such as health, communications, success, and travel.
caption: Astragali used for gaming in Mongolia
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