The viscera (organs of the digestive, respiratory, urogenital, as well as the spleen, the heart, and great vessels) were used to read symbols of the future. This form of mancy was practiced in ancient Egypt (Roman Emperor Heliogabalus is said to have done this, too).
Herodotus said that Menelaus, detained in Egypt by contrary winds, sacrificed to his barbarous curiosity, two children of the country, and sought to discover his destiny.
It is reported that in his magical operations, Julian the Apostate, caused a large number of children to be killed, so that he might consult their entrails and a woman was found in the Temple of the Moon at Carra, in Mesopotamia, hanging by her hair with her liver torn out.
This type of divination continued through the period of the Roman Empire and it was believed to have been revived by notorious practitioners of the black arts during the Middle Ages.