"Ugarite religious texts"

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Under the name Ugaritian texts, the written testimonies that came to light from French archaeologists, with excavations that began in 1929 on the hill of Ra’s Samra (= marathon head) (Ra’s Shamrah or Ras Shamra) in northern Syria are described in their entirety. As it turned out, this hill enclosed the ruins of the ancient city of Ugarit (Ugarit), located 10 km north of al Ladikiya (Latakia or Laodicea).

In the ruins of this city, which was an important commercial and cosmopolitan centre, there were also a significant number of religious and non-religious texts, dating from the 14th to 12th century BC and their study gives us valuable information about the religiousness of Canaan as well as the mythological and historical context of the region. It is certain that especially the Ugarite religious texts, along with those of Nag Hamadi and the Dead Sea Manuscripts, opened new horizons in the science of Bible Archaeology.

Of course, the Ugarian texts were not the only findings in the area, as scientists saw five different archaeological layers there, the latter of which was at a depth of about 18 meters and testifies to the existence of Neolithic culture in the area based on the stone and bone tools found.

The history of finding texts

It was a coincidence that caused the start of the official excavations. In March 1928, a Syrian peasant, organized his field located near Minet el-Beida Bay. By coincidence, his plow fell into some obstacle and when the peasant looked to see what it was, he discovers that the obstacle was but a stone plate. As he tries to dig her up to retrieve her, he sees that this plaque was the covering of a tomb that had been revealed and contained intact small vessels. It was later found that the tomb belonged to the cemetery of ancient Ugarit located southeast and about 1200 meters from the cemetery.

The news of the discovery of the ancient tomb reached the French authorities of Beirut and the director of the Syria and Lebanon Antiquities Service C.Virolleaud rushed to ensure the importance of the event and to disclose the incident to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Paris. There, on a proposal from the well-known Orientalist R.Dussaud, the academy organized excavations, the first period of which lasted from 1929 to 1939, with eleven total missions during the Spring.

By 1939, when excavations were interrupted due to the second world war, they excavated the upper only layers of Ras Samra Hill and on an area covering about 1/8 of the total that was over 60 acres. In addition to the hill, excavation took place on the beach which was about 800 meters to the west, in the Minet el-Beida bay or "White port", as was known by 6th