page_title: Ugarit
section_title: Ugaritic literature
hierarchical_section_title: Ugarit / Language and literature / Ugaritic literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Baal, right arm raised. Bronze figurine, 14th-12th centuries, found in Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit). Français&#160;: Baal, main droite levée. Figurine en bronze, XIVe-XIIe siècles. Découvert à Ras Shamra (ancienne cité d'Ugarit). العربية: تمثال برونزي للإله بعل وهو يرفع ذراعه اليمنى، يرقى للقرن الرابع عشر - القرن الثاني عشر قبل الميلاد وهو من مكتشفات رأس شمرا (مملكة أوغاريت قديماً) قرب اللاذقية.
context_page_description: Ugarit was an ancient port city in northern Syria, in the outskirts of modern Latakia, discovered by accident in 1928 together with the Ugaritic texts. Its ruins are often called Ras Shamra after the headland where they lie.
  Ugarit had close connections to the Hittite Empire, sent tribute to Egypt at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus, documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from c. 1450 BCE until its destruction in c. 1200 BCE; this destruction was possibly caused by the mysterious Sea Peoples or internal struggle. The kingdom would be one of the many destroyed during the Bronze Age Collapse.
context_section_description: 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, among other fragments.
  The discovery of the Ugaritic archives in 1929 has been of great significance to biblical scholarship, as these archives for the first time provided a detailed description of Canaanite religious beliefs, during the period directly preceding the Israelite settlement.  These texts show significant parallels to Hebrew biblical literature, particularly in the areas of divine imagery and poetic form. Ugaritic poetry has many elements later found in Hebrew poetry: parallelisms, metres, and rhythms. The discoveries at Ugarit have led to a new appraisal of the Hebrew Bible as literature.
caption: A Baal statuette from Ugarit
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