Sagmegar (MUL.SAG.ME.GAR)

Definition

Sagmegar (cuneiform mulSAG.ME.GAR, also MUL SAG.ME.GAR, dSAG.ME.GAR) is the principal Akkadian-Sumerian planet-name for Jupiter in the Mesopotamian omen and astronomical corpora, distinct from the theophoric writings dAMAR.UTU (Marduk) and the position-specific names Šulpaʾe, UD.AL.TAR, and Nēberu. As a planet, Jupiter is the visible form of Marduk, chief deity of Babylon, and the writings Sagmegar and Marduk appear interchangeably across the same omen manuscripts.

In Tradition

Assyriological scholarship treats Sagmegar as the dominant Sumerogram for Jupiter across the omen and ephemeris traditions. Brown classes it as the A-name for Jupiter — unique to that planet and usable under any circumstance — attested in all Neo-Assyrian text groups and in the -567, -651, and -418 Diaries. Brown reconstructs the epithet "bearer of signs to the inhabited world" (nāš ṣaddu ana dadāmu) from SB text VR46:r3 as the theological hinge linking Sagmegar to Marduk as foremost-god.

In Practice

For the student of Babylonian celestial divination, Sagmegar is the entry-point into a cluster of Jupiter-names whose distribution is conditioned by sky-position and manuscript group. Reiner and Pingree edit the Enūma Anu Enlil Jupiter-omen tablets (BPO 4) under this Sumerogram — every Group A-H protasis opens with MUL SAG.ME.GAR — and the incipit of BM 35045 (EAE Tablet 63), "If Jupiter becomes stable in the morning," sets the corpus pattern. In MUL.APIN (Hunger-Steele 2019, p. 129) Sagmegar appears at HH i 49-50 and i 60 describing Jupiter's twelve-year cycle: 1-year standing in the east, 20-day or one-month invisibility, 1-year standing in the west. The colophon at iv 12 supplies "Jupiter (is) Šulpaʾe," and BPO 4 records the further alternatives UD.AL.TAR, Šulpaʾe, Marduk, and Nebiru — each used for Jupiter in a different sky-position or scribal context. Recognizing Sagmegar as the unmarked default lets a reader recover the specificity of Šulpaʾe at heliacal rising and Nēberu at the meridian.

Historical Origin

Attested in MUL.APIN (~1000 BCE) at HH I i 49-50 and i 60 (Hunger-Steele 2019, p. 129); used pervasively in the BPO 4 Jupiter-tablet corpus (EAE Tablets 63-65 surviving as BM 35045, BM 48089, K.10196) edited by Reiner and Pingree; and across Neo-Assyrian Diary and Letter contexts analyzed by Brown (-567, -651, -418 Diaries). Modern critical treatments: Hunger & Steele, *MUL.APIN* (2019); Reiner & Pingree, *BPO Part Four* (2005); Brown, *Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology* (2000).

Further Reading

• Hermann Hunger & John Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN
• Erica Reiner & David Pingree, Babylonian Planetary Omens Part Four
• David Brown, Mesopotamian Planetary Astronomy-Astrology