Ritual Employs of Birds in Ancient Syria-Palestine

This study focuses on the features of the ritual use of birds in the cultures of the preclassical Syro-Palestinian area from the end of the 3rd millennium to the 1st millennium B.C. (Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Emar, Ugarit and the Old Testament). Although with obvious peculiarities in different times and places, within that period this cultural area presents a substantial homogeneity and continuity of development, which justify being considered as a whole. Additionally, Punic documentation has also been included for its clear cultural connections with Phoenician culture. Supplementary attention is paid to The use of birds in Hittite and Hurrian rituals. It investigates the forms and purposes of the employment of birds in rituals and divination (and which birds were ritually used in each context) as well as the relationship between sacrificial practices and meat as food within the triangle of "gift," "killing" and "consumption." On the base of a comparison of the results obtained for each context, an outline of historical-religious development will be suggested.