Ugarit
 |
Entrance to the Palace of Ugarit |
Ugarit (modern site
Ras Shamra رأس شمرة; meaning "top/head/cape of the wild fennel" in
Arabic) was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast of northern
Syria a few kilometers north of the modern city of
Latakia. Ugarit sent tribute to
Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with
Cyprus (called
Alashiya), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by
Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from ca.
1450 BC until
1200 BC.
Ugarit's location was forgotten until
1928 when an
Alawite peasant accidentally opened an old
tomb while plowing a field. The discovered area was the
Necropolis of Ugarit. 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 c.
6000 BC, perhaps because it was both a port, and at the entrance of the inland trade route to the
Euphrates and
Tigris lands.
Most excavations of Ugarit were undertaken under extreme political conditions by archaeologist
Claude Schaeffer from the Prehistoric and Gallo-Roman Museum of
Strasbourg.
The excavations uncovered a royal palace of 90 rooms laid out around eight enclosed courtyards, many ambitious private dwellings, including two private libraries (one belonging to a diplomat named Rapanu) that contained diplomatic, legal, economic, administrative, 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, constituting a palace library, a temple library and 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,
Akkadian (the language of diplomacy in the ancient Near East),
Hurrian and
Ugaritic -- of which nothing was known when the discoveries were made. No less than seven different scripts were in use at Ugarit: Egyptian and
Luwian hieroglyphics, and Cypro-Minoan, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Ugaritic cuneiform.
During excavations in
1958, yet another library 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
Institute 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
excavations; in 1994 more than 300 further tablets were discovered on this site in a large
ashlar building, covering the final years of the Bronze Age city's existence.
The most important piece of literature recovered from Ugarit is arguably the
Baal cycle, describing the basis for the religion and cult of the Canaanite
Baal.
Though the site is thought to have been inhabited earlier,
Neolithic Ugarit was already important enough to be fortified with a wall early on, perhaps by
6000 BC.
The first written evidence mentioning the city comes from the nearby city of
Ebla, c.
1800 BC. Ugarit passed into the sphere of influence of Egypt, which deeply influenced its art. The earliest Ugaritic contact with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilization) comes from a carnelian bead identified with the Middle Kingdom pharaoh
Sesostris I,
1971 BC-
1926 BC. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Sesostris II and Amenemhet III have also been found.
Later Ugarit fell under the control of new tribes related to the
Hyksos, who mutilated the Egyptian-style monuments. During its high culture, from the 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in constant touch with Egypt and
Cyprus (named
Alashiya).
The last Bronze Age king of Ugarit, 'Amurapi, was a contemporary of the
Hittite king
Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his reign are unknown.
Ugarit was destroyed at the end of the
Bronze Age. The destruction levels contained Late Helladic IIIB ware, but no LH IIIC (see
Mycenaean period). Therefore, the date of the destruction is important for the dating of the LH IIIC phase. As an Egyptian sword bearing the name of
pharaoh Merneptah was found in the destruction levels, 1230 was taken as the date for the beginning of the LH IIIC. A cuneiform tablet found in 1986 shows that Ugarit was destroyed after the death of
Merneptah, that is, before 1190, probably in 1195. It is generally agreed that Ugarit had already been destroyed in the 8th year of
Ramesses III.
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".
Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated the
Ugaritic alphabet around
1400 BC; 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were adapted from cuneiform characters and inscribed on clay tablets (but cf.
Byblos). A debate exists as to whether the Phoenician or Ugaritic alphabet was first. It was the
Phoenician alphabet that spread through the Aegean and on Phoenician trade routes throughout the Mediterranean. Compared with the difficulty of writing Akkadian in cuneiform—such as the
Amarna Letters, from ca. 1350 BC— the flexibility of an alphabet opened a horizon of literacy to many more kinds of people. The very limited literacy of
Minoan culture at
Knossos around the same time may be compared to that of Ugarit. (See the
Linear B alphabet of Mycenaean Crete.)
Apart from royal correspondence to neighbouring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic literature from tablets found in the libraries include mythological texts written in a narrative poetry, letters, legal documents such as land transfers, a few international treaties, and a number of administrative lists. Fragments of several poetic works have been identified: the "Legend of Kirtu," the "Legend of Dan-el" 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 scholarship, 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 centered on the chief god,
Ilu or
El, the "father of mankind", "the creator of the creation". The Court of El or Ilu was referred to as the
'lhm. The most important of the great gods was
Hadad, the king of Heaven, Athirat or
Asherah (familiar to readers of the Bible),
Yam (Sea, the god of the primordial
chaos, tempests, and mass-destruction) and
Mot (Death). Other gods worshipped at Ugarit were
Dagon (Grain), Tirosch, Horon,
Resheph (Healing), the craftsman
Kothar-and-Khasis (Skilled and Clever),
Shahar (Dawn), and
Shalim (Dusk). Ugaritic texts have provided biblical scholars with a wealth of material on the religion of the Canaanites and its connections with that of the Israelites.
Last kings of Ugarit according to cuneiform sources:
before 1349
Ammittamru I:1349 - 1315
Niqmaddu II:1315 - 1313
Arhalba:1313 - 1260
Niqmepa:1260 - 1235
Ammittamru II:1235 - 1220
Ibiranu:1220 - 1215
Niqmaddu III:1215 - 1185
Ammurapi*
Ugaritic language*
Ugaritic alphabet*
Ebla*
Elohim (gods)*
Online text: The Epic of Ba'al*
Ugarit reading list, Drs Stuckenbruck and Weeks, University of Durham*
The Edinburgh Ras Shamra project includes an introduction to the discovery of Ugarit.*
Ugarit and the Bible*
Ugaritic Literature as an Aid to Understanding the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)*
About the discovery of Ugarit *
Ugaritic culture, cult and art briefly outlined.*
Introduction to Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and a virtual museum of Ugaritic art.*
Brief description of the site of Ugarit.*
Resources on Biblical Archaeology*
Canaanite/Ugaritic Mythology*
Ugarit and Biblical Heritage - A site with descriptions of the primary and minor gods and generous excerpts from the actual stories.
*
Brief history of Ugarit.*
Ugaritic texts and their relationship to the Old Testament.Sources
*Bourdreuil, P. 1991. "Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville : Les textes de la 34e campagne (1973)". in
Ras Shamra-Ougarit, 7 (Paris).
*Drews, Robert. 1995.
The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 BC (Princeton University Press). ISBN 0691025916
*Smith, Mark S., 2001.
Untold Stories ; The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century ISBN 1565635752 Chapter 1: "Beginnings: 1928–1945"
*Sanford Holst. "Phoenicians: Lebanon's Epic Heritage," Cambridge and Boston Press, Los Angeles, 2005.
*Ugarit Forschungen (Neukirchen-Vluyn). UF-11 (1979) honors Claude Schaeffer, with about 100 articles in 900 pages. pp 95, ff, "Comparative Graphemic Analysis of Old Babylonian and Western Akkadian", ( i.e. Ugarit and Amarna (letters), 3 others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal letters). See above, in text.
*Virolleaud, Charles, 1929. "Les Inscriptions cunéiformes de Ras Shamra." in Syria
10, pp 304-310.
*Yon, Marguerite, 2005. The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra
ISBN 1575060299 (Translation of La cité d'Ugarit sur le Tell de Ras Shamra'' 1979)
