
Ugarit (modern site Ras Shamra رأس شمرة; in Arabic language) 35°35´ N; 35°45´E) 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 was at its height about 1450 BC to 1200 BC. Ugarit sent tribute to Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus, documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. ==Excavations== 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. 6th millennium. Most excavations of Ugarit were undertaken under extreme political conditions by archaeologist Claude Schaeffer from the Prehistoric and Gallo-Roman Museum of Strasbourg. ===Neolithic=== Though the site was inhabited earlier, Neolithic Ugarit was already important enough to be fortified with a wall in 6th millennium BC. ===Later Structures=== 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 on which the city was built were two main temples: one to Baal the 'king' son of El (god), and one to Dagon, the chthonic god of fertility and wheat. ===Archives=== On excavation on the site, several deposits of Cuneiform (script) clay tablets were found, constituting 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, about 1200 BC. The tablets found at this cosmopolitan center are written in four languages: Sumerian language, Akkadian language (the language of diplomacy in the ancient Near East), Hurrian language and Ugaritic language of which nothing was known when the discoveries were made. No less than seven different scripts were in use at Ugarit: Egyptian and Hittite hieroglyphic, and Cypro-Minoan, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Ugaritic cuneiform. During excavations in 1958 another library 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 that cover the last years of the Bronze Age City's existence. ==History== The first written evidence naming the city comes from the nearby city of Ebla, c. 18th century 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, 20th century BC-20th century 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 (probably Hurrians or Mitannians) 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. The last Bronze Age king of Ugarit, Hammurapi/'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 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, after 1190, probably 1195 BC. It is generally agreed that Ugarit was already destroyed in the 8th year of Ramses 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, maybe by invasions of the mysterious 'Sea Peoples.' ==Alphabet== Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated the ugaritic alphabet about 14th century BC; 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were adapted from cuneiform characters and inscribed on clay tablets (but cf. Byblos). Eventually the Phoenician alphabet heirs of Ugaritic culture spread the alphabet through the Aegean. Compared to the difficulty of writing Akkadian in cuneiform, the flexibility of an alphabet opened a literate horizon to many more kinds of people.The very limited literacy of Minoan civilization culture at contemporary Knossos may be compared to Ugarit. ==Ugaritic literature== 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 adminitrative lists. Fragments of several poetic works have been identified: the "Legend of Keret," the "Legend of Dan-el" the "Myth of Baal-Aliyan" the "Death of Baal" and other fragments. Ugaritic poetry has many elements later found in Hebrew poetry: parallelisms, meters, rhythms. The discoveries at Ugarit have led to a new appraisal of the Old Testament as a literature. Some references to historical events, and even mythology concepts that appear in the Bible, also appear on the clay tablets from Ugarit. ==Ugaritic Religion== Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, El (god), the 'father of mankind, 'the creator of the creation,' titles that were to have counterparts in the Elohim of Israel. In 1 ''Kings'' 22:19-22, we read of Yahweh meeting with his heavenly council, the very description of heaven which one finds in the Ugaritic texts. The most important of the lesser gods were Baal (familiar to all readers of the Bible), Asherah (also familiar to readers of the Bible), Yaw (the god of the stormy sea) and Mot (the god of death). What is of great interest here is that 'Yam' is the Hebrew word for sea and 'Mot' is the Hebrew word for death. Ugarit also had profound influence on the religious cult of the Canaanites and Philistines that succeeded it, and not indirectly on religious practices developing in the succeeding kingdom of Israel. ==Kings of Ugarit== Last kings of Ugarit according to cuneiform sources: :???? - 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 ''See also: Ugaritic language, Ugaritic alphabet'' ==External links== *[http://www.johnstrt.demon.co.uk/ugaritic/ugarrdl.html Ugarit reading list, Drs Stuckenbruck and Weeks, University of Durham] *[http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ugarit/home.htm The Edinburgh Ras Shamra project includes an introduction to the discovery of Ugarit.] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm Ugarit and the Bible] *[http://www.adath-shalom.ca/ugarit.htm Ugaritic Literature as an Aid to Understanding the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarit.htm About the discovery of Ugarit] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm Ugaritic culture, cult and art briefly outlined.] *[http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ugarit/rsintro/intro001.htm Introduction to Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and a virtual museum of Ugaritic art.] *[http://www.syriatourism.org/Destinations/ugarit.htm#An%20independent%20kingdom Brief description of the site of Ugarit.] *[http://www.BiblicalArcheology.Net Resources on Biblical Archaeology] ===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 [http://www.hendrickson.com/pdf/chapters/1565635752-ch01.pdf Chapter 1: "Beginnings: 1928–1945"] *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) Syrian history Archaeological sites in Syria fa:اوگاریت
This was formerly in the article. Comments on the article should generally be in the talk page, not the article itself: its location was forgotten but rediscovered in 1928 by a female peasant of the Alaouite tribe plowing a field, accidentally opening an old tomb. (I have never heard about a female farmer - in most publications the name of farmer is rendered "Mahmoud Mella az-Zir" - evidently a male name.) == Biblical References to Ugarit? == The first paragraph of this article includes the statement "Repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament, [Ugarit's] location was forgotten..." but no verses are cited anywhere in the article except to show biblical parallels to features of Ugarit's mythology. I would be curious to know where even a few of these references occur. Is there another city name used in the Bible which has been identified with Ugarit? User:Americist 20:02, 2004 Sep 23 (UTC) :A very good point. Ugarit was laid waste before the Hebrews arrived in Canaan. The references in OT are to ''gods'' (Baal etc) who had been worshipped at Ugarit, but not to the city itself after all. Greg Herrick, "Baalism in Canaanite Religion and Its Relation to Selected Old Testament Text" at http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=2053 might make a useful External link at this entry. User:Wetman 20:19, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC) ==Ugarit the "home" of the Hyksos?== I have moved the following here, for editing: :''"The site is the known home the Canaanites people mentioned in the Bible, known to the Egyptians as the Hyksos."'' The rationale for connecting the Hyksos mentioned in Egyptian texts of the 16th and 15th centuries so definitively and specifically with Ugarit in the opening paragraph needs some explanatory context. Is the connection based on the appearance of deities' names-- say Anat-- or on similarities of Ugarit and Hyksos personal names? A ''secure'' Hyksos-Ugarit connection would be an archaeological revelation that would have been published somewhere. Where does this connection come from, before it gets made in Wikipedia? Who has connected the Hyksos in Egypt with their "known home" of Ugarit? Not Wolfgang Helck, 1964. A quote from Helck would prove me wrong. Can we set this idea in some context rather than making the assertion in the opening paragraph? --User:Wetman 05:23, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Problematic Addition == The following was added anonymously to the "Neolithic" section earlier today. ''It was found the evidences of a residence at the top of the hill, where the remains of the Bel Temple is now, and also under thee royal palace.'' I removed it because of the poor form, and because the information it alludes to is ambiguous and not especially coherent. If anyone wants to restore it in a better, clearer form, I'd be delighted. --User:Americist 22:27, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)
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Words begining with Ugarit:
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Ugarit
Ugarit (modern site Ras Shamra رأس شمرة; in Arabic language) 35°35´ N; 35°45´E) 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 was at its height about 1450 BC to 1200 BC. Ugarit sent tribute to Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus, documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. ==Excavations== 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. 6th millennium. Most excavations of Ugarit were undertaken under extreme political conditions by archaeologist Claude Schaeffer from the Prehistoric and Gallo-Roman Museum of Strasbourg. ===Neolithic=== Though the site was inhabited earlier, Neolithic Ugarit was already important enough to be fortified with a wall in 6th millennium BC. ===Later Structures=== 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 on which the city was built were two main temples: one to Baal the 'king' son of El (god), and one to Dagon, the chthonic god of fertility and wheat. ===Archives=== On excavation on the site, several deposits of Cuneiform (script) clay tablets were found, constituting 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, about 1200 BC. The tablets found at this cosmopolitan center are written in four languages: Sumerian language, Akkadian language (the language of diplomacy in the ancient Near East), Hurrian language and Ugaritic language of which nothing was known when the discoveries were made. No less than seven different scripts were in use at Ugarit: Egyptian and Hittite hieroglyphic, and Cypro-Minoan, Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Ugaritic cuneiform. During excavations in 1958 another library 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 that cover the last years of the Bronze Age City's existence. ==History== The first written evidence naming the city comes from the nearby city of Ebla, c. 18th century 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, 20th century BC-20th century 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 (probably Hurrians or Mitannians) 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. The last Bronze Age king of Ugarit, Hammurapi/'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 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, after 1190, probably 1195 BC. It is generally agreed that Ugarit was already destroyed in the 8th year of Ramses 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, maybe by invasions of the mysterious 'Sea Peoples.' ==Alphabet== Scribes in Ugarit appear to have originated the ugaritic alphabet about 14th century BC; 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were adapted from cuneiform characters and inscribed on clay tablets (but cf. Byblos). Eventually the Phoenician alphabet heirs of Ugaritic culture spread the alphabet through the Aegean. Compared to the difficulty of writing Akkadian in cuneiform, the flexibility of an alphabet opened a literate horizon to many more kinds of people.The very limited literacy of Minoan civilization culture at contemporary Knossos may be compared to Ugarit. ==Ugaritic literature== 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 adminitrative lists. Fragments of several poetic works have been identified: the "Legend of Keret," the "Legend of Dan-el" the "Myth of Baal-Aliyan" the "Death of Baal" and other fragments. Ugaritic poetry has many elements later found in Hebrew poetry: parallelisms, meters, rhythms. The discoveries at Ugarit have led to a new appraisal of the Old Testament as a literature. Some references to historical events, and even mythology concepts that appear in the Bible, also appear on the clay tablets from Ugarit. ==Ugaritic Religion== Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, El (god), the 'father of mankind, 'the creator of the creation,' titles that were to have counterparts in the Elohim of Israel. In 1 ''Kings'' 22:19-22, we read of Yahweh meeting with his heavenly council, the very description of heaven which one finds in the Ugaritic texts. The most important of the lesser gods were Baal (familiar to all readers of the Bible), Asherah (also familiar to readers of the Bible), Yaw (the god of the stormy sea) and Mot (the god of death). What is of great interest here is that 'Yam' is the Hebrew word for sea and 'Mot' is the Hebrew word for death. Ugarit also had profound influence on the religious cult of the Canaanites and Philistines that succeeded it, and not indirectly on religious practices developing in the succeeding kingdom of Israel. ==Kings of Ugarit== Last kings of Ugarit according to cuneiform sources: :???? - 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 ''See also: Ugaritic language, Ugaritic alphabet'' ==External links== *[http://www.johnstrt.demon.co.uk/ugaritic/ugarrdl.html Ugarit reading list, Drs Stuckenbruck and Weeks, University of Durham] *[http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ugarit/home.htm The Edinburgh Ras Shamra project includes an introduction to the discovery of Ugarit.] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm Ugarit and the Bible] *[http://www.adath-shalom.ca/ugarit.htm Ugaritic Literature as an Aid to Understanding the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarit.htm About the discovery of Ugarit] *[http://www.theology.edu/ugarbib.htm Ugaritic culture, cult and art briefly outlined.] *[http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/ugarit/rsintro/intro001.htm Introduction to Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and a virtual museum of Ugaritic art.] *[http://www.syriatourism.org/Destinations/ugarit.htm#An%20independent%20kingdom Brief description of the site of Ugarit.] *[http://www.BiblicalArcheology.Net Resources on Biblical Archaeology] ===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 [http://www.hendrickson.com/pdf/chapters/1565635752-ch01.pdf Chapter 1: "Beginnings: 1928–1945"] *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) Syrian history Archaeological sites in Syria fa:اوگاریت
Ugarit
This was formerly in the article. Comments on the article should generally be in the talk page, not the article itself: its location was forgotten but rediscovered in 1928 by a female peasant of the Alaouite tribe plowing a field, accidentally opening an old tomb. (I have never heard about a female farmer - in most publications the name of farmer is rendered "Mahmoud Mella az-Zir" - evidently a male name.) == Biblical References to Ugarit? == The first paragraph of this article includes the statement "Repeatedly mentioned in the Old Testament, [Ugarit's] location was forgotten..." but no verses are cited anywhere in the article except to show biblical parallels to features of Ugarit's mythology. I would be curious to know where even a few of these references occur. Is there another city name used in the Bible which has been identified with Ugarit? User:Americist 20:02, 2004 Sep 23 (UTC) :A very good point. Ugarit was laid waste before the Hebrews arrived in Canaan. The references in OT are to ''gods'' (Baal etc) who had been worshipped at Ugarit, but not to the city itself after all. Greg Herrick, "Baalism in Canaanite Religion and Its Relation to Selected Old Testament Text" at http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=2053 might make a useful External link at this entry. User:Wetman 20:19, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC) ==Ugarit the "home" of the Hyksos?== I have moved the following here, for editing: :''"The site is the known home the Canaanites people mentioned in the Bible, known to the Egyptians as the Hyksos."'' The rationale for connecting the Hyksos mentioned in Egyptian texts of the 16th and 15th centuries so definitively and specifically with Ugarit in the opening paragraph needs some explanatory context. Is the connection based on the appearance of deities' names-- say Anat-- or on similarities of Ugarit and Hyksos personal names? A ''secure'' Hyksos-Ugarit connection would be an archaeological revelation that would have been published somewhere. Where does this connection come from, before it gets made in Wikipedia? Who has connected the Hyksos in Egypt with their "known home" of Ugarit? Not Wolfgang Helck, 1964. A quote from Helck would prove me wrong. Can we set this idea in some context rather than making the assertion in the opening paragraph? --User:Wetman 05:23, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Problematic Addition == The following was added anonymously to the "Neolithic" section earlier today. ''It was found the evidences of a residence at the top of the hill, where the remains of the Bel Temple is now, and also under thee royal palace.'' I removed it because of the poor form, and because the information it alludes to is ambiguous and not especially coherent. If anyone wants to restore it in a better, clearer form, I'd be delighted. --User:Americist 22:27, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
U
UA | UB | UC | UD | UE | UF | UG | UH | UI | UJ | UK | UL | UM | UN | UO | UP | UR | US | UT | UW | UX | UY | UZ |Words begining with Ugarit:
Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugaritic
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Ugaritic_alphabet
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Ugaritic_language
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