Astragalomancy: Knucklebones from Ancient Greece to Today

Knucklebones for Play and for Consulting

The astragalus is a small bone of the foot of certain mammals (sheep, goat): it is the bone that forms the heel of the hock. Thanks to its irregular shape, it lands on one of four faces, which made it, as early as Antiquity, an instrument of play and the ancestor of the die. Astragalomancy is divination by throwing knucklebones: the result is linked to an answer written in advance.

These knucklebones had a double history: they were used for childhood skill games (the “knucklebones game,” still known today), for wagers, for ritual lots and for oracles. This link between play, chance and the sacred is ancient and openly acknowledged.

Ancient Greece and Rome

The Greeks assigned the four faces of a knucklebone the values 1, 3, 4 and 6, with opposite faces adding up to 7. A throw of four knucklebones could produce named combinations: the “Venus,” the most sought after, in which all four faces were different, or the “dog,” the worst, in which the lowest value came up four times. The Romans adopted the principle.

The Greek traveller Pausanias (2nd century CE) describes, in his Description of Greece, an oracle of Heracles at Boura, in Achaea: the querent prayed before the statue, threw four knucklebones onto a table and read the answer on a painted tablet, where each combination corresponded to a text. The mechanism is precise: a random throw and a repertoire of answers.

Inscriptions found in several cities of Asia Minor (Pamphylia, Pisidia, Phrygia), dating from the Roman period, record oracle tables for five knucklebones: 56 possible results, each followed by an answer in verse, often written in the first person and addressed to the stranger passing through. The answers range from reassuring to stern and mention deities. The figure of 56 comes from calculation: there are 56 ways to obtain five results from four faces when order does not matter.

Elsewhere in the World

The principle is found in other forms. In Tibet, the divination dice mo (in Sanskrit pāśaka) are thrown three times to select one of 64 results, which a manual explains. Manuscripts from Dunhuang, dating from the 9th and 10th centuries, contain texts of this kind. Researchers note a similarity of structure with the I Ching (64 results), without being able to conclude a shared lineage.

In southern Africa, hakata (knucklebones or tablets of bone, wood or ivory) are used by Shona healers and diviners within a living religious and social framework. This is not an “equivalent” of Greek knucklebones: each tradition has its own rules, spirits and meanings. It should be respected as a cultural and religious practice, not imitated.

A Modern Version Without Bones

You can reproduce the principle without animal material. Here is a simple version, in the style of a board game.

1. Prepare a table of 11 short answers written by you (“Patience,” “Speak up,” “Wait,” “Move slowly”…), numbered from 2 to 12.
2. Roll two six-sided dice and add the points: you get a number from 2 to 12. The middle results (6, 7, 8) come up more often than the extremes, so put your most general answers there.
3. Read the matching answer as an invitation to reflect, not as information.
4. Write down how you felt.

The value of such an exercise is building the repertoire yourself: you formulate your own advice, which is already a piece of work on yourself. See also bibliomancy and rune casting for other ways of drawing lots.

Status and Caution

Knucklebone casting is random: every result of a throw has a calculable probability, and no study has shown that the results reflect anything other than chance. Moreover, real knucklebones are not balanced: some faces come up more often than others, which makes any reading entirely arbitrary. Keep this art for what it is: a reflective game linked to the history of oracles. The tables written in advance had a precise function: the answer no longer depended on the diviner's mood.

If you use real knucklebones, choose ones sourced from food animals and properly cleaned. To place these practices in their wider context, see the history of divination and the guide to other divinations.

Frequently asked questions

Also read

The meanings mentioned belong to tradition and symbolism. They are neither promises of results nor medical advice. Back to Other divinatory arts.