#ritual sacrifice

• Haruspex — A priest or soothsayer from Etruscan and later Roman antiquity, specialized in the art of divination by examining the internal organs (especially the liver) of ritually sacrificed animals. In a structural and cultural sense, the haruspex interpreted signs considered divine to predict the future or to decipher the will of the gods before major political or military events, his activity being governed by a complex sacred doctrine called the 'Etruscan discipline'.