) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the

Royal Palace of Ugarit The Royal Palace of Ugarit was the royal residence of the rulers of the ancient kingdom of Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. The palace was excavated with the rest of the city from the 1930s by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffe ...

, map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location =

Latakia Governorate Latakia Governorate, also transliterated as Ladhakia Governorate, ( ar, مُحافظة اللاذقية / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat al-Lādhiqīyah'') is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western Syria, bordering Turkey's Hata ...

, Syria , region =

Fertile Crescent The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...

, coordinates = , type = settlement , part_of = , length = , width = , area = , height = , builder = , material = , built = c. 6000 BC , abandoned = c. 1185 BC , epochs =

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

–

Late Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

, cultures =

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

ite , dependency_of = , occupants = , event =

Bronze Age Collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near ...

, excavations = 1928–present , archaeologists =

Claude F. A. Schaeffer Claude may refer to: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...

, condition = ruins , ownership = Public , public_access = Yes , website = , notes = Ugarit (; uga, 𐎜𐎂𐎗𐎚, ''ʾUgarītu''; ar, أُوغَارِيت ''Ūġārīt'' or ''Ūǧārīt'') was an ancient port city in northern Syria, in the outskirts of modern Latakia, discovered by accident in 1928 together with the

Ugaritic texts The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments h ...

. Its ruins are often called Ras Shamra, literally "Cape Fennel"). Se

after the headland where they lie. Ugarit had close connections to the

Hittite Empire The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centr ...

, sent tribute to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

(then called

Alashiya Alashiya ( akk, 𒀀𒆷𒅆𒅀 ''Alašiya'' -la-ši-ia uga, 𐎀𐎍𐎘𐎊 ''ẢLṮY''; Linear B: 𐀀𐀨𐀯𐀍 ''Alasios'' -ra-si-jo, also spelled Alasiya, also known as the Kingdom of Alashiya, was a state which existed in the Middle ...

), documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from c. 1450 BC until its destruction in c. 1185 BC; this destruction was possibly caused by the purported

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...

or internal struggle. The kingdom would be one of the many dismantled during the

History

Ras Shamra lies on the Mediterranean coast, some north of Latakia, near modern Burj al-Qasab.

Origins and the second millennium

Ugarit was important enough to be fortified with a wall early on, perhaps by 6000 BC, though the site is thought to have been inhabited earlier. Ugarit was important perhaps because it was both a port and at the entrance of the inland trade route to the

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers''). Originating in Turkey, the Eup ...

and

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

lands. The city reached its heyday between 1800 and 1200 BC, when it ruled a trade-based coastal kingdom, trading with Egypt, Cyprus, the Aegean, Syria, the Hittites, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. The first written evidence mentioning the city comes from the nearby city of

Ebla Ebla ( Sumerian: ''eb₂-la'', ar, إبلا, modern: , Tell Mardikh) was one of the earliest kingdoms in Syria. Its remains constitute a tell located about southwest of Aleppo near the village of Mardikh. Ebla was an important center t ...

, c. 1800 BC. Ugarit passed into the sphere of influence of Egypt, which deeply influenced its art. Evidence of the earliest Ugaritic contact with Egypt (and the first exact dating of Ugaritic civilization) comes from a

carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semi-precious gemstone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker (the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often used ...

bead identified with the Middle Kingdom

pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: '' pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the ...

Senusret I Senusret I (Middle Egyptian: z-n-wsrt; /suʀ nij ˈwas.ɾiʔ/) also anglicized as Sesostris I and Senwosret I, was the second pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from 1971 BC to 1926 BC (1920 BC to 1875 BC), and was one of the mo ...

, 1971–1926 BC. A

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), wh ...

and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been found. However, it is unclear at what time these monuments were brought to Ugarit. Amarna letters from Ugarit c. 1350 BC record one letter each from

Ammittamru I Ammittamru I (Known by some sources as Amishtammru I or Amistammru I) was a king of the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit who ruled c. 1350 BC. Reign The first mention of him is EA 45 sent by Ammittamru I to Egypt, either in the late reign of Amen ...

Niqmaddu II Niqmaddu II ( ''Amorite'': ) was the second ruler and king of Ugarit, an ancient Syrian citystate in northwestern Syria, reigning c. 1350–1315 BC (or possibly c. 1380–1346 BC) and succeeding his less known father, Ammittamru I. He took his ...

, and his queen. From the 16th to the 13th century BC, Ugarit remained in regular contact with Egypt and Alashiya (Cyprus). In the second millennium BC, Ugarit's population was

Amorite The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...

, and the Ugaritic language probably has a direct Amoritic origin.Pardee, Dennis. "Ugaritic", in
The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia
' (2008) (pp. 5–6). Roger D. Woodard, editor. Cambridge University Press, , (262 pages). The kingdom of Ugarit may have controlled about 2,000 km² on average. During some of its history it would have been in close proximity to, if not directly within, the

Destruction

The last

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

king of Ugarit,

Ammurapi Ammurapi ( Hittite: 𒄠𒈬𒊏𒁉 ''am-mu-ra-pí'') was the last Bronze Age ruler and king (c. 1215 to 1180 BC) of the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. Ammurapi was a contemporary of the Hittite King Suppiluliuma II. He wrote a preserved viv ...

(circa 1215 to 1180 BC), was a contemporary of the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. The exact dates of his reign are unknown. However, a letter by the king is preserved, in which Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of

the crisis ''The Crisis'' is the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was founded in 1910 by W. E. B. Du Bois (editor), Oswald Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly Mi ...

faced by many Near Eastern states due to attacks. Ammurapi's response to an appeal for assistance from the king of

highlights the desperate situation that Ugarit and other cities faced: Eshuwara, the senior governor of Cyprus, responded: The ruler of

Carchemish Carchemish ( Turkish: ''Karkamış''; or ), also spelled Karkemish ( hit, ; Hieroglyphic Luwian: , /; Akkadian: ; Egyptian: ; Hebrew: ) was an important ancient capital in the northern part of the region of Syria. At times during it ...

sent troops to assist Ugarit, but Ugarit had been sacked. A letter sent after Ugarit had been destroyed said: By excavating the highest levels of the city's ruins, archaeologists can study various attributes of Ugaritic civilization just before their destruction, and compare artifacts with those of nearby cultures to help establish dates. Ugarit also contained many caches of cuneiform tablets, actual libraries that contained a wealth of information. The destruction levels of the ruin contained Late Helladic IIIB pottery ware, but no LH IIIC (see

Mycenaean period Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in Ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainland ...

). Therefore, the date of the destruction of Ugarit is important for the dating of the LH IIIC phase in

mainland Greece Greece is a country of the Balkans, in Southeastern Europe, bordered to the north by Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria; to the east by Turkey, and is surrounded to the east by the Aegean Sea, to the south by the Cretan and the Libyan Seas, ...

. Since an Egyptian sword bearing the name of pharaoh

Merneptah Merneptah or Merenptah (reigned July or August 1213 BC – May 2, 1203 BC) was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 BC until his death on May 2, ...

was found in the destruction levels, 1190 BC was taken as the date for the beginning of the LH IIIC. A

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

tablet found in 1986 shows that Ugarit was destroyed after the death of Merneptah (1203 BC). It is generally agreed that Ugarit had already been destroyed by the eighth year of

Ramesses III Usermaatre Meryamun Ramesses III (also written Ramses and Rameses) was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. He is thought to have reigned from 26 March 1186 to 15 April 1155 BC and is considered to be the last great monar ...

(1178 BC). Recent radiocarbon work, combined with other historical dates and the eclipse of January 21, 1192, indicates a destruction date between 1192 and 1190 BC. A large number of arrowheads were recovered from the destruction level. Their typology has not been published as yet.

Kings

Language and literature

Alphabet

Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated the "

Ugaritic alphabet The Ugaritic writing system is a cuneiform abjad (consonantal alphabet) used from around either 1400 BCE or 1300 BCE for Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language, and discovered in Ugarit (modern Ras Al Shamra), Syria, in 1928. It ...

" around 1400 BC: 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were inscribed on clay tablets. Although they are

in appearance, the letters bear no relation to Mesopotamian cuneiform signs; instead, they appear to be somehow related to the

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

-derived

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician a ...

. While the letters show little or no formal similarity to the Phoenician, the standard letter order (seen in the

as ʔ, B, G, D, H, W, Z, Ḥ, Ṭ, Y, K, L, M, N, S, ʕ, P, Ṣ, Q, R, ʃ) shows strong similarities between the two, suggesting that the Phoenician and Ugaritic systems were not wholly independent inventions.

Ugaritic language

The existence of the

Ugaritic language Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologist ...

is attested to in texts from the 14th through the 12th century BC. Ugaritic is usually classified as a Northwest Semitic language and therefore related to

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, and Phoenician, among others. Its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian. It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three cases for

nouns A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

and

adjectives In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

( nominative,

accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...

, and genitive); three numbers: (

singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...

, dual, and

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

); and

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order in Ugaritic is verb–subject–object, subject-object-verb (VSO)&(SOV); possessed–possessor (NG) (first element dependent on the function and second always in genitive case); and

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

–

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...

(NA) (both in the same case (i.e. congruent)).

Ugaritic literature

Apart from royal correspondence with neighboring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic literature from tablets found in the city's libraries include mythological texts written in a poetic narrative, 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 Keret The Legend of Keret, also known as the Epic of Kirta, is an ancient Ugaritic epic poem, dated to Late Bronze Age, circa 1500 – 1200 BC. It recounts the myth of King Keret of Hubur. It is one of the Ugarit texts. History The epic story ...

", the "Legend of

Danel Danel (), father of Aqhat, was a culture hero who appears in an incomplete Ugaritic text of the fourteenth century BCE at Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra), Syria, where the name is rendered DN'IL, " El is judge". Tale of Aqhat The text in ''Corpus T ...

", the Ba'al tales that detail

Baal Baal (), or Baal,; phn, , baʿl; hbo, , baʿal, ). ( ''baʿal'') was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied t ...

- Hadad's conflicts with Yam and Mot, among other fragments. The discovery of the Ugaritic archives in 1929 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 The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

settlement. These texts show significant parallels to Hebrew biblical literature, particularly in the areas of divine imagery and poetic form. Ugaritic poetry has many elements later found in Hebrew poetry: parallelisms,

metres The metre (British spelling Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable va ...

, and

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

s. The discoveries at Ugarit have led to a new appraisal of the Hebrew Bible as literature.

Religion

The important textual finds from the site shed a great deal of light upon the cultic life of the city. The foundations of the

city Ugarit were divided into quarters. In the north-east quarter of the walled enclosure, the remains of three significant religious buildings were discovered, including two temples (of the gods Baal Hadad and

Dagon Dagon ( he, דָּגוֹן, ''Dāgōn'') or Dagan ( sux, 2= dda-gan, ; phn, 𐤃𐤂𐤍, Dāgān) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attes ...

) and a building referred to as the library or the high priest's house. Within these structures atop the acropolis numerous invaluable mythological texts were found. These texts have provided the basis for understanding of the Canaanite mythological world and religion. The Baal of Ugarit was not the same as the Baal of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Baal cycle The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic cycle of stories about the Canaanite god Baʿal ( "Owner", "Lord"), a storm god associated with fertility. It is one of the Ugarit texts, dated to c. 1500-1300 BCE. The text identifies Baal as the god Hadad, t ...

represents Baal Hadad's destruction of Yam (the god of chaos and the sea), demonstrating the relationship of Canaanite ''

chaoskampf Chaos ( grc, χάος, kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap or the abyss created by the separation ...

'' with those of

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...

and the Aegean: a warrior god rises up as the hero of the new

pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...

to defeat chaos and bring order.

Archaeology

Discovery

After its destruction in the early 12th century BC, Ugarit's location was forgotten until 1928 when a peasant accidentally opened an old tomb while ploughing a field. The discovered area was the necropolis of Ugarit located in the nearby seaport of Minet el-Beida. Excavations have since revealed a city with a prehistory reaching back to c. 6000 BC.

Site and palace

The site is a sixty-five foot high mound. Archaeologically, Ugarit is considered quintessentially

ite. A brief investigation of a looted tomb at the necropolis of Minet el-Beida was conducted by Léon Albanèse in 1928, who then examined the main mound of Ras Shamra. But in the next year scientific excavations of Tell Ras Shamra were commenced by archaeologist

Claude Schaeffer Claude may refer to: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...

from the Musée archéologique in Strasbourg. Work continued under Schaeffer until 1970, with a break from 1940 to 1947 because of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

.Claude F. A. Schaeffer et al., Le Palais Royal D'Ugarit III: Textes Accadiens et Hourrites Des Archives Est, Ouest et Centrales, Two Volumes (Mission De Ras Shamra Tome VI), Imprimerie Nationale, 1955. The excavations uncovered a royal palace of ninety rooms laid out around eight enclosed courtyards, and many ambitious private dwellings. Crowning the hill where the city was built were two main temples: one to

the "king", son of El, and one to

, the chthonic god of fertility and wheat. 23

stelae A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

were unearthed: nine stelae, including the famous

Baal with Thunderbolt Baal with Thunderbolt or the Baal stele is a white limestone bas-relief stele from the ancient kingdom of Ugarit in northwestern Syria. The stele was discovered in 1932, about from the Temple of Baal in the acropolis of Ugarit, during excavation ...

, near the Temple of Baal, four in the Temple of Dagon and ten more at scattered places around the city. File:Boar rhyton Louvre AO18521.jpg, Boar

rhyton A rhyton (plural rhytons or, following the Greek plural, rhyta) is a roughly conical container from which fluids were intended to be drunk or to be poured in some ceremony such as libation, or merely at table. A rhyton is typically formed in t ...

, Mycenaean ceramic imported to Ugarit, 14th–13th century BC (

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

). File:UgaritSite.jpg, Remains of the ancient city, some walls and what appears to be a small well.

Texts

On excavation of the site, several

deposits A deposit account is a bank account maintained by a financial institution in which a customer can deposit and withdraw money. Deposit accounts can be savings accounts, current accounts or any of several other types of accounts explained below. ...

clay tablets were found. These have proven to be of great historical significance.

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

General sources

* ''internal strugle'' Annalee Newitz, What Happened to the Original 1 Percent?, New York Times, May 11, 2020 * ''Ugarit Forschungen'' (Neukirchen-Vluyn). UF-11 (1979) honors

, with about 100 articles in 900 pages. pp. 95, ff, "Comparative Graphemic Analysis of

Old Babylonian Old Babylonian may refer to: *the period of the First Babylonian dynasty (20th to 16th centuries BC) *the historical stage of the Akkadian language Akkadian (, Akkadian: )John Huehnergard & Christopher Woods, "Akkadian and Eblaite", ''The Camb ...

and Western Akkadian", ( i.e. Ugarit and Amarna (letters), three others, Mari, OB,Royal, OB,non-Royal letters). See above, in text. * Bourdreuil, P. 1991. "Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville : Les textes de la 34e campagne (1973)". in ''Ras Shamra-Ougarit,'' 7 (Paris). * Caquot, André & Sznycer, Maurice. ''Ugaritic Religion''. Iconography of Religions, Section XV: Mesopotamia and the Near East; Fascicle 8; Institute of Religious Iconography, State University Groningen; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980. * Drews, Robert. 1995. ''The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 BC'' (Princeton University Press). * de Moor, Johannes C. ''The Seasonal Pattern in the Ugaritic Myth of Ba'lu, According to the Version of Ilimilku''. Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Band 16. Neukirchen – Vluyn: Verlag Butzon & Berker Kevelaer, Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1971 * Gibson, J.C.L., originally edited by G.R. Driver.'' Canaanite Myths and Legends''. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, Ltd., 1956, 1977.*K. Lawson and K. L. Younger Jr, "Ugarit at Seventy-Five," Eisenbrauns, 2007, * L'Heureux, Conrad E. ''Rank Among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba'al, and the Repha'im''. Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard Semitic Monographs No. 21, Missoula MT: Scholars Press, 1979. * Meletinskii, E. M., 200
''The Poetics of Myth''
* Mullen, E. Theodore, Jr. ''The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature''. Harvard Semitic Museum, Harvard Semitic Monographs No. 24, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press, 1980/ Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press Reprint, 1986. (comparison of Ugaritic and Old Testament literature). * Dennis Pardee,'' Ritual and Cult at Ugarit'', (Writings from the Ancient World), Society of Biblical Literature, 2002, * William M. Schniedewind, Joel H. Hunt, 2007. ''A primer on Ugaritic: language, culture, and literature'' p. 14. * Smith, Mark S. ''The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Volume 1. Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU 1.1–1.2'', (Vetus Testamentum Supplements series, volume 55; Leiden: Brill, 1994). * Smith, Mark S. ''The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Volume 2. Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU 1.3–1.4'', (Vetus Testament Supplement series, volume 114; Leiden: Brill, 2008). Co-authored with Wayne Pitard. * Smith, Mark S., 2001. ''Untold Stories. The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century'' Chapter 1: "Beginnings: 1928–1945" * Tubb, Jonathan N. (1998), ''Canaanites'' (British Museum People of the Past). * Wilfred G. E. Watson and Nicolas Wyatt, ''Handbook of Ugaritic Studies'', Brill, 1999, * Wyatt, Nicolas (1998): ''Religious texts from Ugarit: the worlds of Ilimilku and his colleagues'', The Biblical Seminar, volume 53. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, paperback, 500 pages.

External links

Ugarit (Tell Shamra) 1999 application for UNESCO World Heritage Site

RSTI
The Ras Shamra Tablet Inventory: an online catalog of inscribed objects from Ras Shamra-Ugarit produced at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
The Ras Shamra Tablet Inventory Blog

Ugarit - World History Encyclopedia

* ttp://www.ras-shamra.ougarit.mom.fr/ Le Royaume d'Ougarit (in French)
Dennis Pardee, Ugarit Ritual texts – Oriental Institute

Pictures from 2009
{{Authority control 1928 archaeological discoveries Amarna letters locations Bronze Age sites in Syria Destroyed cities Former populated places in Syria Late Bronze Age collapse Neolithic sites in Syria Phoenician cities Populated places disestablished in the 2nd millennium BC Populated places established in the 6th millennium BC States and territories disestablished in the 12th century BC States and territories established in the 18th century BC