/mugissar/, mu-ki-SUPER+ra/i

This lexeme is attested in the inscription of KARAHÖYÜK dated to the 12^th century BCE. This inscription is written on a stele dedicated to the Storm-God of the land POCULUM.

[D.S.]

dat. sg.

/mugissari/

mu-ki-SUPER+ra/i

KARAHÖYÜK, §6 (Malatya)

The word is hesitantly compared by Nowicki 1981a:258 to Hittite mugeššar ‘invocation ritual, materials used in an invocation ritual’ based on its phonetic similarity. Hawkins 2000a:292 adopts the idea and affirms that the semantic assignment makes good sense in the context (likewise van Quickelberghe 2013a): The word occurs within a passage describing actions the king did upon his arrival in a new city. The verb of the sentence is sa-SUPER /sasarla-/ ‘to offer in sacrifice’, which brings further evidence to the semantic assignment. The mu-ki-SUPER+ra/i is not the object of the sentence, but the dependent noun of the postpositional phrase mu-ki-SUPER+ra/i SUPER ‘for the invocation ritual’; for the meaning of SUPER /sarri/ as ‘for’ cf. CLuw. šarri ‘up, above, for’ (CLL:190). The other nouns in the sentence refer to buildings, which probably designate places where the rituals are performed, and are likely to be in the locative case. The invocation ritual was probably directed at the Storm-God, to whom the stele is dedicated, i.e. the Storm-God of the land POCULUM. This contextual interpretation is further supported by the fact, that a few lines later, the author mentions that this Storm-God is now reverenced in every place.

[D.S.]

The gender of the lexeme is unknown and, thus, its stem may or may not be mutated, but this cannot be proven based on this single attestation in an oblique case form.

[D.S.]

For phonological reasons, the word /mugissar/ cannot be genuinely Luwian. First, if the equation with Hittite mugeššar is correct, then the presence of the velar in mu-ki-SUPER+ra/i cannot be Luwian in origin, since *g or *ĝ develops to *i̯ before front vowel in Luwian (Melchert 1994a:254). Second, the suffix /-issar/ is not Luwian, but instead, it reflects the Hittite suffix -eššar (cf. Starke 1990a:109f., CLL:110, Rieken 1999a:387). Therefore, this lexeme must be interpreted as a Hittite loanword.

[D.S.]

See also Lyc. B muxssa-.