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Ugarit
Map of Syria in the second millennium BC,
showing the location of Ugarit.
Ugarit, Syria
Ugarit, Syria
Location in Syria
Coordinates: 35°36′06″N 35°47′0″E /
35.60167°N 35.78333°E / 35.60167; 35.78333
Country Syria
Ugarit (Ugaritic:ʼugrt; Hebrew: ‫ ;תיִרָגּוא‬Ar-
abic: ‫( )تيراغوأ‬modern Ras Shamra ‫ةرمش سأر‬
("top/head/cape of the wild fennel" in Arabic),
near Latakia, Syria) was an ancient cosmo-
politan port city, sited on the Mediterranean
coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Egypt and main-
tained trade and diplomatic connections with
Cyprus (called Alashiya), documented in the
archives recovered from the site and corrob-
orated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery
1
Ugarit
Excavated ruins at Ras Shamra.
found there. The polity was at its height from
ca. 1450 BC until 1200 BC.
The site
Ugarit’s location was forgotten until 1928
when an Alawite peasant accidentally opened
an old tomb while plowing a field. The dis-
covered area was the Necropolis of Ugarit
located in the nearby seaport of Minet el-
Beida. Excavations have since revealed an
important city that takes its place alongside
Ur and Eridu as a cradle of urban culture,
with a prehistory reaching back to ca. 6000
BC, perhaps because it was both a port and
at the entrance of the inland trade route to
the Euphrates and Tigris lands.
Entrance to the royal palace.
Most excavations of Ugarit were under-
taken by archaeologist Claude Schaeffer from
the Prehistoric and Gallo-Roman Museum in
Strasbourg.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ugarit

The excavations uncovered a royal palace

of 90 rooms laid out around eight enclosed
courtyards, many ambitious private dwell-
ings, including two private libraries (one be-
longing to a diplomat named Rapanu) that
contained diplomatic, legal, economic, ad-
ministrative, scholastic, literary and religious
texts. Crowning the hill where the city was
built were two main temples: one to Baal the
"king", son of El, and one to Dagon, the
chthonic god of fertility and wheat.
On excavation of the site, several deposits
of cuneiform clay tablets were found, consti-
tuting a palace library, a temple library and --
apparently unique in the world at the time --
two private libraries; all dating from the last
phase of Ugarit, around 1200 BC. The tablets
found at this cosmopolitan center are written
in four languages: Sumerian, Hurrian, Akka-
dian (the language of diplomacy at this time
in the ancient Near East), and Ugaritic (of
which nothing had been known before). No
less than seven different scripts were in use
at Ugarit: Egyptian and Luwian hieroglyph-
ics, and Cypro-Minoan, Sumerian, Akkadian,
Hurrian, and Ugaritic cuneiform.
During excavations in 1958, yet another lib-
rary of tablets was uncovered. These were,
however, sold on the black market and not
immediately recovered. The "Claremont Ras
Shamra Tablets" are now housed at the Insti-
tute for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont
School of Theology, Claremont, California.
They were edited by Loren R. Fisher in 1971.
In 1973, an archive containing around 120
tablets was discovered during rescue excava- A Baal statuette from Ugarit.
tions; in 1994 more than 300 further tablets
were discovered on this site in a large ashlar (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civiliza-
building, covering the final years of the tion) comes from a carnelian bead identified
Bronze Age city’s existence. with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senusret I,
The most important piece of literature re- 1971 BCE–1926 BC. A stela and a statuette
covered from Ugarit is arguably the Baal from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and
cycle, describing the basis for the religion Amenemhet III have also been found.
and cult of the Canaanite Baal. However, it is unclear at what time these
monuments got to Ugarit. Amarna letters
from Ugarit ca. 1350 BC records one letter
History each from Ammittamru I, Niqmaddu II, and
Though the site is thought to have been in- his queen.
habited earlier, Neolithic Ugarit was already During its high culture, from the 16th to
important enough to be fortified with a wall the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in con-
early on, perhaps by 6000 BC. stant touch with Egypt and Cyprus (named
The first written evidence mentioning the Alashiya).
city comes from the nearby city of Ebla, ca.
1800 BC. Ugarit passed into the sphere of in-
fluence of Egypt, which deeply influenced its
art. The earliest Ugaritic contact with Egypt

2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boar rhyton, Mycaenean ceramic imported to
Ugarit, 14th-13th century BC (Louvre)
Destruction
The last Bronze Age king of Ugarit, Am-
murapi, was a contemporary of the Hittite
king Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his
reign are unknown. However, a letter by the
king is preserved. Ammurapi stresses the ser-
iousness of the crisis faced by many Near
Eastern states from invasion by the advan-
cing Sea Peoples when he wrote a dramatic
response to a plea for assistance from the
king of Alasiya. Ammurapi highlights the des-
perate situation Ugarit faced in letter RS
18.147:
My father, behold, the enemy’s ships
came (here); my cities(?) were
burned, and they did evil things in
my country. Does not my father
know that all my troops and chari-
ots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and
all my ships are in the Land of
Lukka?...Thus, the country is aban-
doned to itself. May my father know
it: the seven ships of the enemy that
came here inflicted much damage
upon us.[1]
Unfortunately for Ugarit, no help arrived and
Ugarit was burned to the ground at the end
of the Bronze Age. Its destruction levels con-
tained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH
3
Ugarit
IIIC (see Mycenaean period). Therefore, the
date of the destruction is important for the
dating of the LH IIIC phase. Since an Egyp-
tian sword bearing the name of pharaoh
Merneptah was found in the destruction
levels, 1190 BC was taken as the date for the
beginning of the LH IIIC. A cuneiform tablet
found in 1986 shows that Ugarit was des-
troyed after the death of Merneptah. It is
generally agreed that Ugarit had already
been destroyed by the 8th year of Ramesses
III—i. e. 1178 BC.
Whether Ugarit was destroyed before or
after Hattusa, the Hittite capital, is debated.
The destruction is followed by a settlement
hiatus. Many other Mediterranean cultures
were deeply disordered just at the same time,
apparently by invasions of the mysterious
"Sea Peoples".
Alphabet
Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated
the Ugaritic alphabet around 1400 BC; 30
letters, corresponding to sounds, were adap-
ted from cuneiform characters and inscribed
on clay tablets (but cf. Byblos). A debate ex-
ists as to whether the Phoenician or Ugaritic
alphabet was first. While many of the letters
show little or no formal similarity, the stand-
ard letter order (preserved in the latin alpha-
bet as A, B, C, D, etc.) shows strong similarit-
ies between the two, suggesting that the
Phoenician and Ugaritic systems were not
wholly independent inventions. It was later
the Phoenician alphabet that spread through
the Aegean and on Phoenician trade routes
throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoeni-
cian system became the basis for the first
true alphabet, when it was adopted by Greek
speakers who modified some of its signs to
represent vowel sounds as well, and as such
was in turn adopted and modified by popula-
tions in Italy (including ancestors of the Ro-
mans). Compared with the difficulty of writ-
ing Akkadian in cuneiform—such as the
Amarna Letters from ca. 1350 BC— the flex-
ibility of an alphabet opened a horizon of lit-
eracy to many more kinds of people. In con-
trast, the syllabary (called Linear B) used in
Mycenaean Greek palace sites at about the
same time was so cumbersome that literacy
was limited largely to administrative
specialists.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ugaritic Language
The Ugaritic language is attested in texts
from the 14th through the 12th century BC.
Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic languages,
related to Hebrew and Aramaic. However, its
grammatical features are highly similar to
those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian.
It possesses two genders (masculine and fem-
inine), three cases for nouns and adjectives
(nominative, accusative, and genitive); three
numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and
verb aspects similar to those found in
Western Semitic languages. The word order
in Ugaritic is Verb Subject Object (VSO). pos-
sessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective
(NA).
Ugaritic literature
Apart from royal correspondence to neigh-
bouring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic liter-
ature from tablets found in the libraries in-
clude mythological texts written in a narrat-
ive poetry, letters, legal documents such as
land transfers, a few international treaties,
and a number of administrative lists. Frag-
ments of several poetic works have been
identified: the "Legend of Kirtu," the "Legend
of Danel", the Ba’al tales that detail
Baal-Hadad’s conflicts with Yam and Mot,
and other fragments.
The discovery of the Ugaritic archives has
been of great significance to biblical scholar-
ship, as these archives for the first time
provided a detailed description of Canaanite
religious beliefs during the period directly
preceding the Israelite settlement. These
texts show significant parallels to Biblical
Hebrew literature, particularly in the areas
of divine imagery and poetic form. Ugaritic
poetry has many elements later found in
Hebrew poetry: parallelisms, meters, and
rhythms. The discoveries at Ugarit have led
to a new appraisal of the Old Testament as
literature.
Ugaritic religion
Writing of ’religion’ in the Ancient Near East
is at best a dubious science. Academia
prefers to speak of various ’cults’ within the
ancient context.[2] The important textual
finds from the Ras Shamra (Ugarit) site shed
a great deal of light upon the cultic life of the
city and Canaanite culture. There is growing
4
Ugarit
scholarly agreement that the material culture
of Ugarit should be properly designated
Canaanite High Culture.[3]
In the north-east quarter of the walled in-
closure the remains of three significant build-
ings were unearthed; the temples of Baal and
Dagon and the library (sometimes referred to
as the high priest’s house). Within these
structures atop the acropolis numerous in-
valuable mythological texts were found.
Since the 1930s these texts have opened up
for us something of the Canaanite mytholo-
gical world. The Baal Cycle represents Baal’s
destruction of Yam (the chaos sea monster),
demonstrating the relationship of Canaanite
chaoskampf with those of Mesopotamia and
the Aegean: warrior god rises up as the hero
of the new pantheon to defeat chaos and
bring order.
It is almost certain that the cult(s) of Baal
in the Levant influenced later Israelite cult
and mythology. Yahweh often takes on the
chaoskampf role of Baal in his struggle with
the chaotic sea. It would, however, be incor-
rect to use later redacted biblical texts to re-
construct Canaanite religion or cult. As the
soonest we can date a people known as Israel
in southern Canaan is by the Merneptah
Stele (c.a. 1200 BCE), and it would be some
two hundred years more before this people
have a monarchic state.
While we know El to be the chief of the
Canaanite pantheon, very little attention is
paid to him in the cultic/mythological texts.
This is rather common of Middle to Late
Bronze Age mythology; the high god is drawn
into the background whilst new warrior deit-
ies move to centre stage. In Ugarit and much
of the Levant this is Baal, to the Shosu and
the later Israelites this is Yahweh and his
consort, and in Mesopotamia this is Marduk.
These warrior-god mythologies show remark-
able points of contact and are most likely re-
flections of the same arche-myth.
Kings of Ugarit
Ruler Reigned Comments
Niqmaddu I
Yaqurum I
Ibiranu I
Ammittamru ca. 1350
I BC
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ugarit

Niqmaddu ca. 1350 - Contemporary of • Meletinskii, E. M., 2000 The Poetics of

II 1315 BC Suppiluliuma I of Myth
the Hittites • Smith, Mark S., 2001. Untold Stories ; The
Arhalba ca. 1315 - Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the
1313 BC Twentieth Century ISBN 1-56563-575-2
Chapter 1: "Beginnings: 1928–1945"
Niqmepa ca. 1313 -
Treaty with
• Ugarit Forschungen (Neukirchen-Vluyn).
1260 BCMursili II of the
UF-11 (1979) honors Claude Schaeffer,
Hittites, Son of
with about 100 articles in 900 pages. pp
Niqmadu II,
95, ff, "Comparative Graphemic Analysis
Ammittamru ca. Contemporary of
of Old Babylonian and Western Akkadian",
II 1260-1235 Bentisina of
( i.e. Ugarit and Amarna (letters), 3
BC Amurru, Son of
others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal
Niqmepa
letters). See above, in text.
Ibiranu ca. 1235 - • Virolleaud, Charles, 1929. "Les
1225/20 Inscriptions cunéiformes de Ras Shamra."
BC in Syria 10, pp 304-310.
Niqmaddu ca. 1225/ • Yon, Marguerite, 2005. The City of Ugarit
III 20 - 1215 at Tell Ras Shamra ISBN 1-57506-029-9
BC (Translation of La cité d’Ugarit sur le Tell
Ammurapi ca. 1200 Contemporary of de Ras Shamra 1979)
BC Chancellor Bay of • Ed. K. L. Younger Jr. "Ugarit at Seventy-
Egypt, Ugarit is Five," Eisenbrauns, 2007.
destroyed • William M. Schniedewind, Joel H. Hunt,
2007. A primer on Ugaritic: language,
culture, and literature ISBN 0521879337
See also p. 14.
• Ugaritic language
•
•
Ugaritic alphabet
Ebla
External links
• Elohim (gods) • Online text: The Epic of Ba’al
• Ugaritic religious documents • The Edinburgh Ras Shamra project
includes an introduction to the discovery
of Ugarit.
References • Ugarit and the Bible
[1] Jean Nougaryol et. al. (1968) Ugaritica • Ugaritic Literature as an Aid to
V: 87-90 no.24 Understanding the Hebrew Bible (Old
[2] Miller, J. Maxwell, and Hayes, John H., A Testament)
History of Ancient Israel and Judah • About the discovery of Ugarit
(London: SCM Press, 1986)pp. 121-147 • Ugaritic culture, cult and art briefly
[3] Wyatt, Nicholas, Religious Texts from outlined.
Ugarit: the words of Ilimiku and his • Introduction to Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and
colleagues (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic a virtual museum of Ugaritic art.
Press, 1998)p. 53f • Resources on Biblical Archaeology
• Canaanite/Ugaritic Mythology
Sources • Ugarit and Biblical Heritage - A site with
• Bourdreuil, P. 1991. "Une bibliothèque au descriptions of the primary and minor
sud de la ville : Les textes de la 34e gods and generous excerpts from the
campagne (1973)". in Ras Shamra- actual stories.
Ougarit, 7 (Paris). • Brief history of Ugarit.
• Drews, Robert. 1995. The End of the • Ugaritic texts and their relationship to the
Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Old Testament.
Catastrophe ca. 1200 BC (Princeton • Le Royaume d’Ougarit (in French)
University Press). ISBN 0-691-02591-6
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugarit"

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ugarit

Categories: Ugarit, Archaeological sites in Syria, History of Syria, Amarna letters locations,
Latakia, Cultural Sites on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, Former settlements in
Syria

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