Ugarit (Hebrew אוּגָרִית): Bronze Age port in northern Syria, destroyed in the early twelfth century BCE, modern Ras Shamra. Cuneiform tablets illustrate the religion of ancient Canaan, i.e., the gods against which the first Jewish prophets polemicized.
History
Royal Palace
The Neolithic settlement was already a port of sufficient importance to need a wall
Mentioned for the first time in texts from Ebla, about 1800 BCE
Among the finds is a ceremonial axe, made of iron to which a bit of carbon was added, which proves that the smith understood the principle of steel
From the cuneiform tablets found in Ugarit, we know quite a bit about the city's kings. The last one of these was called Hammurapi and was a contemporary of king Šuppililiuma II of the Hittites.
This was the age of the Sea People, who may have destroyed Ugarit in about 1175 BCE. Generally speaking, this was the end of the Bronze Age system. It is not known whether the attacks of the Sea People caused this crisis or were its consequence.
Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit
Ugarit, Copper and steel axe
Ugarit, Cretan vase
Ugarit, Tomb of Rafanu
Religion
Like its language, Ugarite religion can be called "West-Semitic" or "Canaanite". This means that the pantheon and myths of Ugarit may, in some way or another, have been known to the people of ancient Israel and Judah.
For example: the Ba'al mentioned as Canaanite idol in the Bible, is known from Ugarit as well. In lists of deities, Ba'al is usually named immediately after El and Dagan, but we are also lucky to have the nearly complete text of a myth. In this text, Ba'al defeats the seagod Yam in a conflict that probably represents the war between order and chaos. Later, Ba'al builds a palace and wants to succeed El as king of the gods, but he is somehow - temporarily - defeated by Mut, the god of death. However, Ba'al overcomes his opponent, and becomes ruler of the Netherworld himself, where he resides for several months every year.
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.
Ugarit, Statuette of a seated god
Ugarit, Stele of the "smiting god"
Ugarit, Temple of Baal, Stele with the king of Ugarit in front of the god Baal Saphon
Mount Saphon, north of Ugarit.
Writing
Many tablets, written in a West-Semitic language that was related to Amorite
Among these tablets are very old alphabetic texts, with thirty signs. They are not the world's oldest texts in an alphabetic script, though: inscriptions from the Sinai desert and Egypt's western desert are considerably older.
Ugarit, Alphabet tablet
Ugarit, Stone face
Ugarit, Stele with the king of Ugarit in front of the god El
