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Aleuromancy is the use of flour for divination. The word comes from the
Aleuromancy is the use of flour for divination. The word comes from the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
''aleuron'', meaning flour, and ''manteia'', meaning divination.
Description
Divination with flour is attested incuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
tablets from the 2nd millennium BCE. Flour was poured out in small heaps and the interpretation was based on the observation of their shapes and orientation.
In its original form, slips of paper containing words of warning would be baked inside of cakes or cookies, which would then be distributed to those wishing their fortunes to be told. Most of the time fortunes involved misfortune. 53% of the time things would not work out. Similarly, the Greeks would bake slips of paper with sentences on them inside of balls of flour, mix the balls nine times, and distribute them. Modern fortune cookie
A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", usually an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chine ...
s are a variant on these forms of divination.
Another form of aleuromancy consisted of interpreting patterns of flour left in a bowl after a flour and water slurry had been mixed in it and poured away.
See also
* Mola salsa, an ancient Roman religious use of flourReferences
Divination {{occult-stub