It is clear from excavations that Ugarit was first settled in the Neolithic period about B. Ugarit is mentioned in cuneiform documents discovered at Mari on the Euphrates dating to the Middle Bronze Age ca.
However, it was in the fourteenth century B. At that time, the prince of Byblos, the wealthy trading coastal city in modern Lebanon , wrote to the Egyptian king Amenhotep IV Akhenaten, r. It is like the residence at Ugarit. Extraordinary large are the riches there. Ugarit was a flourishing city, its streets lined with two-story houses dominated on the northeastern side of the tell by an acropolis with two temples dedicated to the gods Baal and Dagan.
A large palace , built from finely dressed stones and consisting of numerous courtyards, pillared halls, and a columned entrance gate, occupied the western edge of the city. In a special wing of the palace were a number of rooms apparently devoted to administration, since hundreds of cuneiform tablets were discovered there covering almost all aspects of the life of Ugarit from the fourteenth to the twelfth century B.
It is clear that the city dominated the surrounding land though the full extent of the kingdom is uncertain. From around B. This was mainly a result of repeated attacks by the Hittites of Central Anatolia. Eventually, around B. According to the texts, other states had tried to draw Ugarit into an anti-Hittite alliance, but the city refused and called on the Hittites for help. After the Hittites conquered the region, a treaty was drawn up that made Ugarit a Hittite subject-state.
Fighter, king of the gods, ruler of the Netherworld: Ba'al had several important roles. But he had more functions: he was also believed to reside on Mount Saphon or Mount Casius, north of Ugarit , was considered to be the judge of the gods, the lord of wind and weather, the controller of rain, storm, thunder, and lightning, and responsible for the annual renewal of vegetation. His divine consort is called Anath. Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit. Ugarit, Copper and steel axe.
Ugarit, Cretan vase. Ugarit, Tomb of Rafanu. Worship at Ugarit was essentially a drunken orgy in which priests and worshippers indulged in excessive drinking and excessive sexuality. This because the worshippers were attempting to convince Baal to send rain on their crops. Since rain and semen were seen in the ancient world as the same thing as both produced fruit , it simply makes sense that participants in fertility religion behaved this way. Perhaps this is why in Hebrew religion the priests were forbidden to partake of wine while performing any rituals and also why females were barred from the precincts!!
Hos , Is , and Lev KTU 6. The Prophets of the Old Testament likewise protested against this behavior when it occured among the Israelites. Ezekiel denounces such behavior as godless and pagan in All of them will speak and say to you: You too have become as weak as we!
You have become like us! Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps; maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering.
When one goes to the grave of an ancestor, one prays to them; feeds them; and brings them an offering like flowers ; all in hopes of securing the prayers of the dead. The prophets despised this behavior; they saw it as a lack of trust in Yahweh, who is God of the living and not god of the dead. So, instead of honoring dead ancestors, Israel honored their live ancestors as we clearly see in Ex , Deut , and Lev Akkadian was the language used in international diplomacy at that time and there are a number of documents from Ugarit in this language.
Compare this with Israel at I Sam and you will see that they were very similar in this respect. But, it must be said, the Israelites were not interested in the Sea and were not boat builders or sailors in any sense of the word.
Before a journey Ugaritic sailors made offerings and prayed to Baal Zaphon in hopes of a safe and profitable journey cf. KTU 2. Psalm was borrowed from Northern Canaan and reflects this attitude towards sailing and trade. When Solomon needed sailors and ships he turned to his northern neighbors for them.
I Kings and In many of the Ugaritic texts El was described as a bull, as well as a human form. But they refused to extend their art to images af Yahweh cf. Ex God commanded the people to make no image of himself; and did not forbid every kind of artistic expression.
In fact, when Solomon constructed the temple he had it engraved with a great number of artistic forms. That there was a bronze serpent in the temple as well is well known. The Israelites did not leave as many artisitic pieces behind as did their Canaanite neighbors. And what they did leave behind show traces of being heavily influenced by these Canaanites.
The literature of the city and the theology contained therein go a very long way in helping us to understand the meaning of various Biblical passages as well as aiding us in deciphering difficult Hebrew words. Ugarit was at its political, religious and economic height around the 12th century B.
Simply because when we listen to their voices we hear echoes of the Old Testament itself. Several of the Psalms were simply adapted from Ugaritic sources; the story of the flood has a near mirror image in Ugaritic literature; and the language of the Bible is greatly illuminated by the language of Ugarit.
For instance, look at M. Dahood s brilliant commentary on the Psalms in the Anchor Bible series for the necessity of Ugaritic for accurate Biblical exegesis. In short, when one has well in hand the literature and theology of Ugarit, one is well on the way to being able to comprehend some of the most important ideas contained in the Old Testament.
For this reason it is worthwhile that we pursue this topic. We now have a much clearer picture of Canaanite religion than we ever had before. We also understand the Biblical literature itself much better as we are now able to clarify difficult words due to their Ugaritic cognates.
This is a unique blending of an alphabetic script like Hebrew and cuneiform like Akkadian ; thus it is a unique blending of two styles of writing. Most likely it came into being as cuneiform was passing from the scene and alphabetic scripts were making their rise. Ugaritic is thus a bridge from one to the other and very important in itself for the development of both. As a language develops the meaning of words changes or their meaning is lost altogether.
This is also true of the Biblical text. But after the discovery of the Ugaritic texts we gained new information concerning the meaning of archaic words in the Hebrew text. In the Hebrew text"silver lips" is divided just as it is here. This has caused commentators quite a bit of confusion over the centuries, for what does "silver lips" mean? The discovery of the Ugaritic texts has helped us to understand that the word was divided incorrectly by the Hebrew scribe who was as unfamiliar as we are with what the words were supposed to mean.
Instead of the two words above, the Ugaritic texts lead us to divide the two words as which means "like silver". This makes eminently more sense in context than the word mistakenly divided by the Hebrew scribe who was unfamiliar with the second word; so he divided into two words which he did know even though it made no sense. Another example occurs in Ps Here a word is usually translated "help" but the Ugaritic word gzr means "young man" and if Psalm is translated this way it is clearly more meaningful.
For example, in Proverbs wisdom and folly are personified as women. This means that when the Hebrew wisdom teacher instructed his students on these matters, he was drawing on material that was commonly known in the Canaanite environment for Ugarit was Canaanite.
The numbers are what we might call the chapter and verse. In fact, Ugaritic literature besides lists and the like is composed completely in poetic metre. Biblical poetry follows Ugaritc poetry in form and function.
There is parallelism, qinah metre, bi and tri colas, and all of the poetic tools found in the Bible are found at Ugarit. In short the Ugaritic materials have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of the Biblical materials; especially since they predate any of the Biblical texts.
The crisis had serious consequences. The city-state's economy was weak, the internal politics was becoming unstable. The city was unable to defend itself.
The torch was passed to the maritime cities south of Ugarit such as Tyre, Byblos and Sidon. Ugarit's fate was sealed around B. The city disappeared from history thereafter. The destruction of Ugarit marked the end of a brilliant phase in the history of Middle Eastern civilizations. Many letters of this late period are preserved at Ugarit and reveal a city suffering from raids by pirates.
One of the groups, the Shikala, can be connected with "sea peoples" who appear in contemporary Egyptian inscriptions as a vast hoard of looting vandals. Whether the fall of the Hittites and Ugarit should be attributed to these people is not certain, and they may have been more a result than a cause.
However, the magnificent palace, harbor, and much of the city were destroyed and Ugarit was never resettled. Page Top. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of country or topic discussed in the article.
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