From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ugarit

Ugarit

Excavated ruins at Ras Shamra.

found there. The polity was at its height from

ca. 1450 BC until 1200 BC.
Map of Syria in the second millennium BC,
showing the location of Ugarit.
The site
Ugarit, Syria 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.

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 Entrance to the royal palace.
coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Egypt and main-
tained trade and diplomatic connections with Most excavations of Ugarit were under-
Cyprus (called Alashiya), documented in the taken by archaeologist Claude Schaeffer from
archives recovered from the site and corrob- the Prehistoric and Gallo-Roman Museum in
orated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery Strasbourg.

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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

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 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".

Boar rhyton, Mycaenean ceramic imported to

Alphabet
Ugarit, 14th-13th century BC (Louvre) Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated
the Ugaritic alphabet around 1400 BC; 30
letters, corresponding to sounds, were adap-
Destruction ted from cuneiform characters and inscribed
The last Bronze Age king of Ugarit, Am- on clay tablets (but cf. Byblos). A debate ex-
murapi, was a contemporary of the Hittite ists as to whether the Phoenician or Ugaritic
king Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his alphabet was first. While many of the letters
reign are unknown. However, a letter by the show little or no formal similarity, the stand-
king is preserved. Ammurapi stresses the ser- ard letter order (preserved in the latin alpha-
iousness of the crisis faced by many Near bet as A, B, C, D, etc.) shows strong similarit-
Eastern states from invasion by the advan- ies between the two, suggesting that the
cing Sea Peoples when he wrote a dramatic Phoenician and Ugaritic systems were not
response to a plea for assistance from the wholly independent inventions. It was later
king of Alasiya. Ammurapi highlights the des- the Phoenician alphabet that spread through
perate situation Ugarit faced in letter RS the Aegean and on Phoenician trade routes
18.147: throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoeni-
cian system became the basis for the first
My father, behold, the enemy’s ships true alphabet, when it was adopted by Greek
came (here); my cities(?) were speakers who modified some of its signs to
burned, and they did evil things in represent vowel sounds as well, and as such
my country. Does not my father was in turn adopted and modified by popula-
know that all my troops and chari- tions in Italy (including ancestors of the Ro-
ots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and mans). Compared with the difficulty of writ-
all my ships are in the Land of ing Akkadian in cuneiform—such as the
Lukka?...Thus, the country is aban- Amarna Letters from ca. 1350 BC— the flex-
doned to itself. May my father know ibility of an alphabet opened a horizon of lit-
it: the seven ships of the enemy that eracy to many more kinds of people. In con-
came here inflicted much damage trast, the syllabary (called Linear B) used in
upon us.[1] Mycenaean Greek palace sites at about the
same time was so cumbersome that literacy
Unfortunately for Ugarit, no help arrived and was limited largely to administrative
Ugarit was burned to the ground at the end specialists.
of the Bronze Age. Its destruction levels con-
tained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ugarit

Ugaritic Language scholarly agreement that the material culture

of Ugarit should be properly designated
The Ugaritic language is attested in texts Canaanite High Culture.[3]
from the 14th through the 12th century BC. In the north-east quarter of the walled in-
Ugaritic is a Northwest Semitic languages, closure the remains of three significant build-
related to Hebrew and Aramaic. However, its ings were unearthed; the temples of Baal and
grammatical features are highly similar to Dagon and the library (sometimes referred to
those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. as the high priest’s house). Within these
It possesses two genders (masculine and fem- structures atop the acropolis numerous in-
inine), three cases for nouns and adjectives valuable mythological texts were found.
(nominative, accusative, and genitive); three Since the 1930s these texts have opened up
numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and for us something of the Canaanite mytholo-
verb aspects similar to those found in gical world. The Baal Cycle represents Baal’s
Western Semitic languages. The word order destruction of Yam (the chaos sea monster),
in Ugaritic is Verb Subject Object (VSO). pos- demonstrating the relationship of Canaanite
sessed–possessor (NG), and noun–adjective chaoskampf with those of Mesopotamia and
(NA). the Aegean: warrior god rises up as the hero
of the new pantheon to defeat chaos and
Ugaritic literature bring order.
It is almost certain that the cult(s) of Baal
Apart from royal correspondence to neigh- in the Levant influenced later Israelite cult
bouring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic liter- and mythology. Yahweh often takes on the
ature from tablets found in the libraries in- chaoskampf role of Baal in his struggle with
clude mythological texts written in a narrat- the chaotic sea. It would, however, be incor-
ive poetry, letters, legal documents such as rect to use later redacted biblical texts to re-
land transfers, a few international treaties, construct Canaanite religion or cult. As the
and a number of administrative lists. Frag- soonest we can date a people known as Israel
ments of several poetic works have been in southern Canaan is by the Merneptah
identified: the "Legend of Kirtu," the "Legend Stele (c.a. 1200 BCE), and it would be some
of Danel", the Ba’al tales that detail two hundred years more before this people
Baal-Hadad’s conflicts with Yam and Mot, have a monarchic state.
and other fragments. While we know El to be the chief of the
The discovery of the Ugaritic archives has Canaanite pantheon, very little attention is
been of great significance to biblical scholar- paid to him in the cultic/mythological texts.
ship, as these archives for the first time This is rather common of Middle to Late
provided a detailed description of Canaanite Bronze Age mythology; the high god is drawn
religious beliefs during the period directly into the background whilst new warrior deit-
preceding the Israelite settlement. These ies move to centre stage. In Ugarit and much
texts show significant parallels to Biblical of the Levant this is Baal, to the Shosu and
Hebrew literature, particularly in the areas the later Israelites this is Yahweh and his
of divine imagery and poetic form. Ugaritic consort, and in Mesopotamia this is Marduk.
poetry has many elements later found in These warrior-god mythologies show remark-
Hebrew poetry: parallelisms, meters, and able points of contact and are most likely re-
rhythms. The discoveries at Ugarit have led flections of the same arche-myth.
to a new appraisal of the Old Testament as
literature.
Kings of Ugarit
Ugaritic religion Ruler Reigned Comments
Niqmaddu I
Writing of ’religion’ in the Ancient Near East
Yaqurum I
is at best a dubious science. Academia
prefers to speak of various ’cults’ within the Ibiranu I
ancient context.[2] The important textual Ammittamru ca. 1350
finds from the Ras Shamra (Ugarit) site shed I BC
a great deal of light upon the cultic life of the
city and Canaanite culture. There is growing

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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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