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ancient port city in northern Syria
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Ugarit (; Ugaritic: 𐎜𐎂𐎗𐎚, ủgrt /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient Levantine coastal city located in what is today northern Syria, at a site known in Arabic as Ras Shamra or Tell Shamra. Since its discovery in 1928, the site has revealed the oldest known systematic use of an alphabet. Ugaritic texts were written in a previously unknown Northwest Semitic tongue—the Ugaritic language. Archaeological excavations of Ugarit show evidence of occupation since the 8th millennium BC. Research has focused on the late Bronze Age levels; relatively little is known about earlier occupation.
Ugarit is 10 km (6.2 mi) north of the Syrian city Latakia; at its zenith it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate.
Ugarit has its origins in the Neolithic period of the Fertile Crescent. The site was occupied from the end of the 8th millennium BC and continued as a settlement through the Near Eastern Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages until its destruction c. 1185 BC. During the Late Bronze Age (c. 1500 – c. 1200 BC) the settlement saw significant growth, culminating in the establishment of the Kingdom of Ugarit.
The city had close ties to the Hittite Empire, in later periods as a vassal state. It sent tribute to Egypt at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic relations with Alashiya (possibly Cyprus), as documented in archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from c. 1450 – c. 1185 BC, when it was destroyed, along with the sites of many other polities that fell in the Late Bronze Age collapse of 12th century BC. Both Tell Sukas and nearby Tell Tweini (proposed as ancient Gibala), a coastal city at the southern edge of the Kingdom of Ugarit, were also destroyed at this time.
The Middle Bronze Age emerged after a major drought event that ended around 2020 BC. In Mesopotamia, the Fall of Ur III led to the Isin-Larsa period.
Ugarit (Stratum 8) provides material from MB I.
Around 1820 BC (MB IIA), the Great Kingdom of Yamhad (Aleppo) emerged under its King Sumu-Epuh as a regional power. Ugarit (Stratum 7) would eventually become a vassal of Yamhad along with several other petty kingdoms in the Northern Levant (Syria).
The Mari Archive (c. 1765 BC) mentions Ugarit. Mari was a kingdom located on the Middle Euphrates to the east of the Yamhad Empire. The archive contained cuneiform tablets written in Akkadian. Trade would have gone from Ugarit, Aleppo, Emar, Mari down to Babylon. Zimri-Lim of Mari (r. 1775–1760 BC) also made a state visit to Ugarit.
Ugarit had contacts with the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (c. 2000 – c. 1700 BC). One artifact is a carnelian bead inscribed with the name of Senusret I. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been recovered; it is unclear at what time these objects were brought to Ugarit.
In MB IIB (c. 1628 – c. 1590 BC), the Hattusili I of Hatti attacked Yamhad around 1620 with Mursili I of Hatti making new raids around 1600/1590 BC, causing the Great Kingdom of Yamhad to collapse. Ugarit (Stratum 6) was relatively shielded lying on the coast behind a mountain range. Large parts of Inner Syria were devastated by the Hittite onslaught ending MB IIB. In the Northern Levant there is no MB IIC (c. 1590 – c. 1550 BC) as in the Southern Levant, but the material culture changes to LB IA.
The city reached its golden age between 1500 BC and 1200 BC when it ruled a mercantile coastal kingdom, trading with Egypt, Cyprus, Aegean states (primarily Minoan Crete), polities in Syria, the Hittites, cities of the Levantine core (including Ascalon in Canaan), and much of the eastern Mediterranean. Five of the Egyptian Amarna letters from the mid-14th century BC were written in Ugarit. The population of Ugarit in this period is estimated to be between 7,000 and 8,000 individuals. The kingdom of Ugarit controlled about 2,000 km2 on average.
In the mid-14th century BC, Ugarit was ruled by king Ammittamru I. A letter (EA45) sent by him, probably to pharaoh Amenhotep III (1388–1351 BC), expresses cordial diplomatic relations between the two. During the reign of his son Niqmaddu II (c. 1350 – c. 1315 BC) Ugarit became a vassal of the Hittite Empire, first under a viceroy in Karkemiš and then, with the Hititte collapse, directly under Karkemiš. During the reign of Niqmaddu III Ugarit was one of several vassals which supplied troops to support the Hittites against the Suteans in a battle at Tuttul (possibly modern Tell Bi’a though there were two cites with that name in the region). Diplomatic relations with Egypt continued, as evidenced by two letters sent by Niqmaddu II (EA49) and his wife Ḫeba (EA48), probably sent to Akhenaten (1351–1334 BC). The former includes a request from the Egyptian king to send a physician to Ugarit.
From the late 13th century into the early 12th century BC the eastern Mediterranean faced severe and widespread food shortages, possibly from crop failures due to climate change or plant disease. The kings of Ugarit—a major supplier and transporter of foodstuffs—received a number of desperate pleas for food from neighboring states. Eventually Ugarit itself faced shortage and hunger. A letter from Egyptian pharaoh Merenptah (r. 1213 – 1203 BC) referred to a message sent by the ruler of Ugarit:
So you had written to me: “Could I not have demanded my needs [from] the Great King, the king of Egypt, my lord? I demand this request: [In] the land of Ugarit there is a severe hunger (bi-ru-ú dan-niš): May my lord save [the land of Ugarit], and may the king give grain (ZÍZ.AN.MEŠ) to save my life … and to save the citizens of the land of Ugarit.
The last king of Ugarit, Ammurapi (c. 1215 – c. 1180 BC), was a contemporary of the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. A letter by Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of the crisis faced by many Near Eastern states due to attacks from outsiders. Ugarit's army and navy joined with Hittite forces to stem the oncoming enemy; the allies eventually had to fall back from Anatolia to the Syrian frontier. Ammurapi's response to the king of Alashiya's appeal for assistance from highlights the desperate situation in Ugarit and across the eastern Mediterranean:
My father, behold, the enemy's ships came (here); my cities(?) were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots(?) are in the Land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the Land of Lukka? ... Thus, the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us.
Eshuwara, the senior governor of Alashiya, responded:
As for the matter concerning those enemies: (it was) the people from your country (and) your own ships (who) did this! And (it was) the people from your country (who) committed these transgression(s) ... I am writing to inform you and protect you. Be aware!
In the end Ammurapi begged for forces from the Hittite viceroy at Karkemiš. The invaders had captured the kingdom's other port, Ra’šu, and were advancing on the city of Ugarit.
To the king, my lord say, thus Ammurapi, your servant.… I wrote you twice, thrice, [new]s regarding the enemy! … May my lord know that now the enemy forces are stationed at Ra’šu, and their avant-guard forces were sent to Ugarit. Now may my lord send me forces and chariots, and may my lord save me from the forces of this enemy!
The viceroy sent troops to assist Ugarit, but Ugarit had already been sacked when the Hittite forces reached the city. A letter written to the viceroy after the destruction said:
When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. Our food in the threshing floors was burnt and the vineyards were also destroyed. Our city is sacked. May you know it! May you know it!
Scribes in Ugarit appear to have developed the oldest systematically used alphabet around 1400 BC; 30 letters, corresponding to sounds, were inscribed on clay tablets. The exact logic behind the design of Ugaritic letters is still unknown but proving single origin has remained difficult up until today. While the letters show little or no formal similarity to the Phoenician, the standard letter order (seen in the Phoenician alphabet as ʔ, B, G, D, H, W, Z, Ḥ, Ṭ, Y, K, L, M, N, S, ʕ, P, Ṣ, Q, R, Š, T) shows strong similarities between the two, suggesting that the Phoenician and Ugaritic systems were not wholly independent inventions. A Unicode block for Ugaritic has been defined.
The existence of the Ugaritic language 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, Aramaic, 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 and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive); three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages. The word order in Ugaritic is verb–subject–object (VSO) and subject-object-verb (SOV); possessed–possessor (NG) (first element dependent on the function and second always in genitive case); and noun–adjective (NA) (both in the same case (i.e. congruent)).
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 Danel", the Ba'al tales that detail Baal-Hadad's conflicts with Yam and Mot, for pre-eminence under the God El among other fragments.
Because all texts found at Ugarit date between roughly 1350 BC and 1185 BC, essentially all that is known about earlier rulers of Ugarit comes from the Ugaritic King List (UKL). It is, however, known that Ugarit was active earlier in the millennium from Mari correspondence though it is not clear that the site maintained continuity of occupation in the intervening period. The first UKL exemplar found, alphabetic cuneiform KTU 1.113 (RS 24.257), was written in the Akkadian language and only a fragment with the names of only some of the rulers surviving. It was determined that there were originally 52 names on the list. It was not clear if the list ran in direct or retrograde order. Subsequently, four more exemplars have been found, syllabic cuneiform RS 88.2012, RS 94.2518, RS 94.2528 and RS 94.2501 (incomplete), also written in the Akkadian language. All 52 names are preceded by a Dingir character indicating that that ruler had been deified. Deification of rulers first appeared in the Akkadian Empire period and by the Old Babylonian period had become relatively common. Attempts have been made to link one ruler entry, Krt, with the figure Kirta known from the literary composition "The Legend of Kirta".
A number of Late Bronze Age Ugarit rulers used a cylinder seal (not yet found) reading "Yaqarum, son of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit". Yaqarum is the first (or in some interpretations the last) name on the UKL. It is assumed that this seal was an heirloom used to add legitimacy to the current ruler. Alternate views was Yaqarum was a tradition mythical name for the Ugarit ruler. There were two exemplars of the seal, one well cut and dated to the Middle Bronze Age and one crudely cut and dated to the Late Bronze Age. Late Bronze rulers also occasionally used a ring seal.
Archaeological soundings of Ugarit indicate that it was first occupied in the Neolithic period, no later than the eighth millennium BC. Only the highest—i.e., the newest—levels of the city's ruins have been excavated. The recovered evidence gives a picture of Ugaritic civilization just before its destruction in the Late Bronze Age collapse of the early 12th century BC. This evidence includes many caches of cuneiform tablets found inside libraries.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ugarit”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.