Saggar (also Šaggar,[1] Sanugaru,[2] Šanugaru[3]) was a god worshiped in ancient Syria, especially in the proximity of Ebla and Emar, later incorporated into the Hurrian and Hittite pantheons.
[7] An explanatory text indicates that Saggar was associated with millstones in Mesopotamia, possibly because the corresponding mountain range was a source of basalt, used to make these implements.
[12] In addition to Saggar, lunar character has also been proposed for another Eblaite god assumed to belong to such a substrate, Hadabal, based on the fact that Larugadu, originally one of the centers of his cult, was later associated with Yarikh.
[15] As early as in the third millennium BCE, Saggar was associated with Išḫara, as attested by the texts from Ebla, which mention that they were worshiped together in Mane.
[16] The Mesopotamian god list An = Anum makes Saggar the husband of Išḫara,[2] but Lluis Felieu notes that while she was associated with various male deities in different time periods and locations, most evidence does not indicate that she was believed to have a permanent spouse.
[5] It is possible that he can be identified with the "divine lord" of that city, dBE, known from Eblaite documents, as the identification of that title as a designation of the town's main deity Išḫara is implausible.
[21] Alfonso Archi proposes that after the fall of Ebla Saggar was among the gods who did not retain their former position in the religion of the Amorites, who became the dominant culture in Syria, and compares his situation to that of Adamma, Ammarik, Aštabi or Halabatu.
[3] He assumes that they were reduced to the status of deities of at best local significance, and as a result were easily incorporated into the religion of the Hurrians when they arrived in the same area a few centuries later.
A treaty from Mari mentions dŠa-ga-ar be-el Kur-daki, while a man bearing the theophoric name Sagar-rabu was a commander of the troops from the same city.
[28] In late Bronze Age Emar, Saggar was worshiped during the zukru festival, seemingly in association with the full moon on the fifteenth day of the month Zarati in the local calendar.
[13] During the excavations in Emar, one of the discoveries was the archive of a man bearing the theophoric name Saggar-abu, who acted as the city's diviner and based on colophons of the tablets was a copyist of Mesopotamian texts.
[34] However, most of the texts from that period appear to only use the name Saggar to designate an administrative division of the Assyrian empire, rather than a deity.