Ugaritic Religion

Among the remains of the ancient city of Ugarit, situated just north of the modern city of Latakia on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean Sea, are hundreds of texts that reveal an intricate and diverse religious picture of the city's inhabitants. Excavations began in 1929, and to date, around 1,500 different texts, from 17 archives, have been published, many of which were produced during the “golden age” of Ugarit in the 15th and 14th centuries BCE. Ugarit's position as a major port city made it a major center of international trade and exchange of religious ideas between the western Mediterranean, Egypt, and the ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. The likely existence of thriving scribal schools at Ugarit makes the Ugaritic texts an ...