A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature - enenuru

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Ugaritic <strong>Primer</strong>
priestly families from the administrative texts excavated at Ugarit.
The house of the high priest included a significant repository of the
literary and epic texts from Ugarit (see Figure 1.4, #2). Priests were
responsible for the temple administration and services. These
temples were supported by the royal palace and may be regarded
as a kind of state religion. The numerous villages scattered
throughout the kingdom also had their local shrines and priests.
There were apparently also private religious associations, as
reflected in the marzih˙u tablet (KTU 3.9; see exercise §5.3). This
text has especially received attention because of the biblical
marzeah, aninstititution known throughout the ancient Near East
(e.g., Amos 6:7; Jer 16:5) but whose significance is much debated. 17
Even the gods participated in this institution, as we see in the
divine banquet for the god El (KTU 1.114; exercise §6.1). This
latter text begins with the banqueting myth (obverse), which is then
followed by what seems to be a hangover remedy (reverse).
1.6 TEXTS IN THE UGARITIC LANGUAGE
Nearly all the remains of the Ugaritic language and literature have
been discovered in excavations at the site of Ras Shamra. A small
number of Ugaritic texts were excavated at the small port site of
Ras Ibn Hani (in its northern palace), 5 kilometers south of Ras
Shamra. A few short texts using a cuneiform alphabet have been
found elsewhere in the western Mediterranean area on Cyprus
(Hala Sultan Tekke, near Larnaca), in Syria (Tell Sukas, Kedesh),
Lebanon (Kamid el-Loz, Sarepta), and Israel (Mount Tabor,
Taanach, Beth-Shemesh). There are also texts that were found at
Ugarit but originated elsewhere (like the letter from the king of
Tyre [KTU 2.38; exercise §3.10]). Thus, while the language is
conventionally labeled Ugaritic (owning to the circumstance of the
discovery), the alphabetic cuneiform script and the “Ugaritic”
language were in much wider circulation than simply the kingdom
of Ugarit during the late second millennium. This also points to the
17
For a transcription and translation see T. Lewis, “El’s Divine Feast,” in UNP,
193–96.