Divination from ashes

 Nowadays, fortune-telling has become a popular (though not cheap) pastime for many, a respite from everyday worries, sometimes an amusing pastime that evokes an indulgent smile. At a time when current fortune-telling techniques, such as tarot, were not yet known, fortune-telling was done with a variety of other available materials, from sand, the entrails of birds sacrificed to the gods, to beer, ashes, even the ashes of the dead.

Abacomancy, also known as amatomancy (from the Greek amathos, meaning sand) is the practice of foretelling the future from omens (signs, shapes resembling something) formed in dust or from dust, dirt or sand. Sometimes the fortune teller uses(s) the ashes of a deceased person. The exact origins of this method of divination have been forgotten over time. It is certain, however, that this method of divination was invented in ancient times.

Closely related to abacomancy is spodomancy, also known as tuframancy. It involves divination using the cinders, ashes or soot left over from the hearth/altar on which the sacrificial fire burned. A specific type of spodomancy, which used patterns formed in the ashes from the burnt offerings, was often called tefromance. In the case of spodomancy, divinations were read from marks drawn in the ash with eyes closed.

In the Middle Ages, hollow, rectangular cinders (i.e. lumps of burnt ash) were said to indicate the imminent death of a family member, while oval-shaped cinders, so-called 'cradles', foretold the birth of a child. Cinders that formed a round shape, called "wallets", suggested prosperity and the so-called "smile of fate", while cinders arranged in a "heart-shaped" manner heralded a new feeling.