Ugarit
A Syrian port destroyed around 1185 BCE whose clay tablets reveal the gods and deified ancestors of Canaan.
- Location
- Ras Shamra, near Latakia on the Mediterranean coast
- Modern country
- Syria
- Discovered
- 1928; French excavations from 1929
- Known for
- Cuneiform alphabet; myths of Baal, El and the rpum
- Golden age
- c. 1450–1200 BCE
- End
- Destroyed around 1185 BCE and never rebuilt
What is Ugarit known for?
Ugarit was a wealthy trading city on the Syrian coast at Ras Shamra, near Latakia. A farmer's plough exposed a tomb in 1928, and French excavations began in 1929. Its golden age ran from about 1450 to 1200 BCE, when it traded with Egypt, the Hittites, Cyprus and the Aegean.
Scribes at Ugarit wrote in a cuneiform alphabet of about thirty signs, one of the earliest alphabets. The tablets preserve myths of El, Baal and Anat, and rituals that summon the rpum, deified royal ancestors. Scholars compare these to the biblical Rephaim and to the Bible's divine council and storm-god imagery. One text places a divine king at Ashtaroth and Edrei, the same towns where the Bible puts Og of Bashan.
Ugarit was destroyed around 1185 BCE during the Bronze Age collapse. Letters found in its ruins describe enemy ships approaching, and the city was never rebuilt.
Its tablets on the rpum and the divine council are key background for the Rephaim, Og and the Bronze Age collapse.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeBronze Age collapse
- Rabbit holeOg of Bashan
- Rabbit holeRephaim, Emim and Zamzummim
- Rabbit holeThe divine council (sons of God)
- PassageHe rode upon a cherub (Psalm 18:9–10)
- PersonE. Theodore Mullen
- PlaceBashan
- PlaceCanaan
Sources
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Ugarit'Reference
- Wikipedia, 'Ugarit'Reference
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Ugaritic alphabet'Reference
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