For my recent birthday, my daughter Lilli gifted me volumes 1-3 of If a City is Set on a Height: The Akkadian Omen Series Summa Alu Ina Mele Shakin, compiled and translated by Sally Friedman. 

The Epic of Gilgamesh (I suggest Stephen Mitchell’s highly accessible translation) was a gateway drug into all things Sumerian and Akkadian for me. Gilgamesh, transformed by love for his friend (or lover) Enkidu, discovers that life is fleeting and must be lived in service of something greater than one’s self: not the gods, who are depicted as being venal and cruel, but rather the city, which stands (I think) for everything created by humans: culture, society, the polis, art—however one wishes to characterize it. 

I must have read Gilgamesh as a teenager because the story was imprinted on my imagination when I encountered it again as an adult several years ago. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you drop everything and do so at once!

Now’s also a good time to mention the extraordinary multi-instrumentalist Peter Pringle, a national treasure. Pringle took it on himself to compose a musical rendition of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which he performs in Sumerian and accompanies on the long-necked gishgudu, a sort of Sumerian lute. If this doesn’t make the hairs on your arms stand up, nothing will!

Anyway, back to the omens. Here are some good ones having to do with houses:

If there are green, white and red fungi in a man’s house, the owner of the house will die and his house will be dispersed Tablet 12

If a man buys a house, the god of the house will establish that he may speak and be accepted; they will care for his desire. Tablet 17

If a goatlike demon is seen in a man’s house, that house will be dispersed. Tablet 19

If a light-flash like a cultic torch is seen, that man’s house will become disagreeable to him. Tablet 20