>One maintains that the head was dedicated to Mercury, another to Mars, while the third states that the ceremony took place in the temple of the Moon. Al-Biruni declares that the Sabians sacrificed children to Saturn
>Elsewhere he writes that the Sabians were notorious for human sacrifice, but 'at present they are not allowed to carry it out in public'. We may wonder whether it was ever performed during the Christian era. With one dubious exception, no Christian chronicler indicts the Harranian pagans with this offence. An explanation for the naive reports of Moslem writers may be found in the Syriac history of Bar Hebraeus, which was compiled from earlier sources. Ibrahim, governor of Harran in the 9th century, permitted the Harranians to celebrate their mysteries in public. They led in procession, our chronicler relates with distaste, a bull decorated with garlands of flowers and bells, and accompanied by singers and musicians; it was then solemnly sacrificed
>This bull is evidently the sacrificial victim to Saturn of al-Dimashqi. We read of it elsewhere. It was wholly black—an unusual colour in Harranian sacrifices. It was fed with grass plucked by virgins at sunrise. Drawn by a chain of gold, with incense burning before it and amid prayers, it was taken to the place of sacrifice. Its head was smeared with salt and wine, it was decapitated and its organs were examined for omens
>We may find here the origin of the stories of the human victim placed in a bath of sesame oil and fed with figs for the period of one year; then, rumour had it, the severed head would advise the Sabians for one year—others held one week—on their scientific and economic affairs. The stories derive from a popular Harranian proverb—'he is in oil', that is, he is in distress. Not unrelated is the phrase 'preparation of the head', a well-known term among alchemists
