Ugarit (; , 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 north of the Syrian city Latakia; at its zenith it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate.
History 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.Kemp, Luke; Cline, Eric H., "Systemic Risk and Resilience: The Bronze Age Collapse and Recovery", in: Adam Izdebski, John Haldon, and Piotr Filipkowski (eds.), Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises, Springer, pp. 207-223, (2022). . p. 206. During the Late Bronze Age ( 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),Helène Whittaker, "Mycenaean cult buildings: a study of their architecture and function in the context of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean", Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens, v. 1. Bergen: Norwegian Institute at Athens, 1997 . as documented in archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from 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.
Neolithic, Chalcolithic Age Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Stratum 16 Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Stratum 15 Halafian Chalcolithic, Stratum 14 Halafian Chalcolithic, Stratum 13 Chalcolithic Ugarit Stratum 12
Early Bronze Age EB I-II - Ugarit Stratum 11 EB III - Ugarit Stratum 10 EB IV - Ugarit Stratum 9
Middle Bronze Age 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.
Middle Bronze I Ugarit (Stratum 8) provides material from MB I.Courtois, J.-C. (1974). Ugarit Grid, Strata, and Find-Localizations: A Re-assessment. Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1953-), 90(2), 97–114. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27930989
Middle Bronze IIA 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 ( 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 ( BC) also made a state visit to Ugarit.
Ugarit had contacts with the Egyptian Middle Kingdom ( BC). One artifact is a carnelian bead inscribed with the name of Senusret I.Yon, Marguerite, "Geography and History", in The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra, University Park, USA: Penn State University Press, pp. 9-26, (2006). 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.
Middle Bronze IIB In MB IIB ( 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 ( BC) as in the Southern Levant, but the material culture changes to LB IA.
Late Bronze Age
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.Heltzer, M., "The Metal Trade of Ugarit and the Problem of Transportation of Commercial Goods", Iraq, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 203–11, 1977 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.Garr, W. Randall, "A Population Estimate of Ancient Ugarit", Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 266, pp. 31–43, 1987 The kingdom of Ugarit controlled about 2,000 km2 on average.Pardee, Dennis. "Ugaritic", in The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia, Roger D. Woodard, editor. Cambridge University Press, (2008). . .
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 ( BC) Ugarit became a vassal of the Hittite Empire, first under a viceroy in Karkemiš and then, with the Hititte collapse, directly under Karkemiš.Yaron, R., "A Royal Divorce at Ugarit", Orientalia, 32(1), pp. 21–31, 1963van Soldt, Wilfred. H., "Ugarit as a Hittite Vassal State", Altorientalische Forschungen, vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 198-207, 2010Barra, Vita; Pablo, Juan, "The Hittites in the administrative texts of Ugarit", KASKAL, 18, pp. 111-126, (2021) 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).Torrecilla, Eduardo, "Sutean Tribes on the Borders between Ḫatti and Assyria: A Case of ‘Displaced Peoples’?", Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, 2026 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.Moran, William L., "The Amarna Letters", Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, (1992)
Destruction
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:
The last king of Ugarit, Ammurapi ( 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.Astour, Michael C., "New Evidence on the Last Days of Ugarit", American Journal of Archaeology, 69(3), pp. 253–58, 1965Rainey, A. F., "The Military Personnel of Ugarit", Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 24, no. 1/2, pp. 17–27, 1965 Ammurapi's response to the king of Alashiya's appeal for assistance from highlights the desperate situation in Ugarit and across the eastern Mediterranean:
Eshuwara, the senior governor of Alashiya, responded:
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.
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:
Language and literature
Alphabet
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.Pardee, Dennis, "The Ugaritic Alphabetic Cuneiform Writing System in the Context of Other Alphabetic Systems", Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, Oriental Institute, 60, pp. 181–200, (2007). A Unicode block for Ugaritic has been defined.Ugaritic Range: 10380–1039F, The Unicode Standard, Version 15.1.
Ugaritic language
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)).Stanislav Segert, "A basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: with selected texts and glossary", (1984). .
Ugaritic literature
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.Wyatt, Nicolas, "Religious texts from Ugarit: the worlds of Ilimilku and his colleagues", The Biblical Seminar, 53. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, (1998).
Rulers 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