Scapulimancy

Scapulimancy is an ancient practice where people believed they could predict the future by looking at the burnt bones of animals, specifically the shoulder blade bone of sheep.

Okay, so you know how we have bones in our bodies, right? Well, animals like sheep also have bones in their bodies, including a big bone in their shoulder called a scapula. People who did scapulimancy would take one of these bones and burn it in a fire until it was all black and charred.

Then, they would look at the bone and try to figure out what it meant for the future. They believed that different cracks, bumps, and markings on the bone would reveal things like whether there would be good or bad luck, if there would be a good harvest, or even if a battle would be won or lost.

It was kind of like reading a fortune in tea leaves or tarot cards - the bones were like a special tool to help people try and understand what might happen in the future.

Today, we don't really use scapulimancy anymore because we have other ways of predicting the future, like science and technology. But it's still interesting to learn about the different ways people used to try and understand the world around them!