- This event has passed.
Oracles, Omens and Answers
06 December 2024 to 27 April 2025
About Oracles, Omens and Answers
Oracles, Omens and Answers is a new exhibition by the Bodleian Libraries’ looking at how people have sought answers in the face of the unknown across time and cultures.
Discover how people have sought answers to life’s big questions throughout history.
Drawing on material from across time and cultures – from oracle bones from Shang Dynasty China (ca. 1250-1050 B.C.E.) to an autobiography of Ronald Reagan’s White House astrologer – Oracles, Omens and Answers will explore the different techniques humans have used to unveil the past, understand the present and predict the future.
From palm reading and astrology to weather and public health forecasting, see how societies have turned to divination to ask questions that resonate with us today – health, relationships, money and politics.
Step into the world of divination and uncover how humanity has tried to confront the unknown and uncertain.
The exhibition is curated by Dr Michelle Aroney, historian of science and religion at Magdalen College, Oxford, and Professor David Zeitlyn, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford and an initiated Mambila gam dù spider diviner.
Read more: New exhibition at the Weston Library explores divination across times and cultures
Tickets
Booking information
Price:
Free admission, no ticket required.
Location:
ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library.
Gallery
Click images to enlarge with captions
Exhibition book
Divination, Oracles & Omens
Edited by Michelle Aroney and David Zeitlyn
Published on 05 December 2024
Accompanying the exhibition, a spellbinding collection of twenty-four divinatory techniques from around the world exploring our need to appeal to powers beyond our realm for prediction and clarification.