Metoposcopy

[1][2] Pliny mentions a metoposcopos, described by Appion the Grammarian, who ("a thing incredible to be spoken") could judge a person's age and how much longer they would live.

[4] Isaac Luria (1534 - 1572), a Syrian rabbi considered to be the founder of contemporary Kabbalah, practised a form of metoposcopy in which he interpreted the appearance of Hebrew letters on the forehead.

[5][1] Metoposcopy was developed by the 16th century Italian polymath Gerolamo Cardano, considered to be one of the foremost mathematicians of the Renaissance.

His seminal work Metoposcopia libris tredecim, et octingentis faciei humanae eiconibus complexa, illustrated with engravings of 800 foreheads, was written in 1558 and published posthumously in 1658.

[1] Jean Bodin denounced metoposcopy in his influential work De la démonomanie des sorciers (1580).