Šumma ālu ina mēlê šakin is the title for a series of a collected number of
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...
texts of ancient
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
amounting to one hundred and twenty
clay tablets
In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets ( Akkadian ) were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age.
Cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylu ...
.
The title translates as ''If a City is Situated on a Height'', and it lists over ten thousand
omens
An omen (also called ''portent'') is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was commonly believed in ancient history, and still believed by some today, that omens bring divine messages ...
.
Many of the omens listed in this group begin with the words "Šumma ina āli ma'du (kind of people)," as in, "if there are too many kinds of people," and the omens in this group then proceed with a description of misfortune or negative occurrence.
Similarities are recognised within the nature of the series and in other types of works that are concerned with
hemerology and
menology
A menologium (, pl. menologia), also known by other names, is any collection of information arranged according to the days of a month, usually a set of such collections for all the months of the year. In particular, it is used for ancient Roman ...
.
Homosexuality omens
The text contains some omens related to homosexuality. Out of the 38 omens, five of them are related to homosexuality and two of them are positive omens. One of the positive omens states, "If a man copulates with his equal from the rear, he becomes the leader among his peers and brothers".
References
External links
* http://ccp.yale.edu/omen-series-summa-alu
* https://www.jstor.org/stable/23503257?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
*http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=1490125001&objectid=279109
*http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/2147.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Summa alu
Akkadian literature
Homosexuality