Mittelseminar

Archäologie der Zeit der „Seevölker“ im Mittelmeerraum

SS 2021

Hausarbeit

Ugarit: A Fragile State?

Ben-Kilian Fleuss
3501625
BA Assyriologie 75% / Ethnologie 25%, 6. Fachsemester

Anrechnung im Anteil Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Vertiefungsmodul 3

Ich versichere, dass ich diese Hausarbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen
Hilfsmittel verwandt habe.

Heidelberg, 3. September 2021

Ort und Datum Unterschrift

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 Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 4

2. Before the fall: Ugarit as a fragile state .................................................................................... 5

2.1. Ugarit under Hittite dominion....................................................................................... 5

2.2. Drought and famine ...................................................................................................... 10

2.3. Social disorder and banditry.......................................................................................... 16

3. The last days of Ugarit? ......................................................................................................... 19

3.1. The Šikala letter (RS 34.129) .......................................................................................... 19

3.2. Three letters on enemy ships (RS 20.18, RS L 1, RS 20.238,) ....................................... 22

3.3. Other written sources ................................................................................................... 29

3.4. Excursus: Sea People in Ugarit?..................................................................................... 32

3.5. Destruction and reconstruction in Ugarit and surroundings ...................................... 35

3.6. Excursus: Dating the fall of Ugarit ................................................................................ 38

4. Conclusion: A fragile state?................................................................................................... 41

5. Appendix: Table of synchronisms ........................................................................................43

6. Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 44

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1. Introduction

The discovery in 1928 of ancient ruins on the hill of Ras Shamra in Mandatory Syria, not far from

modern Latakia, quickly turned out to be perhaps the single most significant find in 20 th century

Ancient Near Eastern archaeology. When Claude Schaeffer’s first expedition of French archaeologists

took up their work the following year, they found themselves excavating the ruins of what had once

been a great and prosperous city, the port of call of trading vessels from as far afield as Egypt, Italy and

the Aegean. Moreover, it soon became clear that the people of that city had produced a plethora of

writings, including works of high literature, in all the major languages of the Ancient Near East, but

especially the Sumerian and Akkadian of Mesopotamian cuneiform and an indigenous Northwest

Semitic language written in a cuneiform alphabetic script. That literature, in particular,

revolutionised our understanding of the culture and mythology of Late Bronze Age Canaan, the

context in which the earliest strands of the Biblical tradition began to emerge. The name of that city

was Ugarit; we call its language Ugaritic.

Yet despite its prosperity and sophistication, Ugarit did not last. It is not mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible, and no references to it appear in cuneiform records from the first millennium. The

site at Tell Ras Shamra was abandoned, the city burned. Barring a few squatters, the once-great city

of Ugarit became a ruined ghost town. Yet right up until the end of habitation at Ugarit, we have

evidence of a vibrant and seemingly prosperous society.

What precipitated this rapid decline? Traditionally, the fall of Ugarit is blamed on the so-called

Sea Peoples, an amorphous and difficult to grasp group of peoples from around the Mediterranean

world that supposedly wreaked havoc on the settled societies of the Eastern Mediterranean during

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the final years of the Bronze Age,1 toppling even great powers like the Hittite Empire before being

defeated by the Egyptian king, Ramesses III.

The Sea Peoples certainly played a major role in the fall of Ugarit. However, they were not the

sole calamity that struck the city and region during that time, and certainly were not—at least at

Ugarit—the vast military invasion Ramesses III brags about defeating. Rather, as we shall see, the

attacks of the Sea Peoples, probably in the form of a series of raids executed by a number of groups

and possibly including Canaanite discontents and outcasts, were the proverbial straw that broke the

camel’s back. A strong and stable society and state would likely have survived the attacks, as the

Phoenician city-states did. But Ugarit, despite its wealth, was neither, being politically, socially and

economically dysfunctional, as we shall demonstrate. The attacks of the Sea Peoples, well-

documented in a number of dramatic, but highly problematic letters, both exploited and were

exacerbated by the fundamental fragility of the Kingdom of Ugarit.

2. Before the fall: Ugarit as a fragile state

2.1. Ugarit under Hittite dominion

From the time of Amenophis III onwards, Ugarit, like most of its neighbours in northern Syria,

had been part of the Egyptian sphere of influence, though not formally a vassal state.2 This changed,

however, when Egypt’s Syrian wall of vassals began to crumble during the upheaval of Akhenaten’s

reign. Aligning itself with its regional rival, the militarily-strong but less prosperous Kingdom of

1 On the dating of the fall of Ugarit, see below. Absolute dates shall be avoided throughout the text; for a table of
synchronisms, see the appendix.
2 Itamar Singer, ‘A Political History of Ugarit’ in Wilfred G.E. Watson and Nicholas Wyatt (eds.), Handbook of Ugaritic

Studies (Leiden, 1999), pp. 621-627

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Amurru, which exacted a heavy tribute from Ugarit for its protection, Ugarit joined the Hittite camp

under Šuppiluliuma I during that king’s ‘one year campaign’, ca. 1340 BCE.3

Where distant Egypt had been something of a hands-off overlord, the great kings of Ḫatti were

less disinterested and imposed a hefty tribute upon Ugarit, which continued throughout the Hittite

period, though the details were renegotiated several times.4 In addition, Ugarit was expected to

provide troops for the Hittite king’s campaigns; for instance, an Ugaritic contingent fought for the

Hittites at the Battle of Qadeš.5 How burdensome this obligation in particular was, we shall see below.

Hittite commercial agents also took a major role in facilitating trade at Ugarit, apparently to the

detriment of Ugarit’s own mercantile class, which petitioned successfully for Anatolian traders from

the city of Ura to be barred from residing in the city year-round after they acquired real estate by

foreclosing on Ugaritic debtors.6 7 Like other Hittite vassals in Syria, Ugarit was not generally ruled

directly from Ḫattuša. Rather, the Hittite kings installed their dynast, the king of Karkemiš, as a de

facto viceroy, and much of Ugarit’s archival correspondence regarding her military and tributary

obligations is with the kings of Karkemiš.8

During the last half-century of Ugarit’s existence, for which records are most plentiful, Ugarit

was neither an overeager nor a beloved vassal to the great kings of Ḫatti. This tension may have been

exacerbated when Muršili II, Great King of Ḫatti, supposedly deposed the Ugaritic king Arḫalba and

replaced him with his brother Niqmepa, possibly for growing too close to an anti-Hittite coalition in

3 Ibid., pp. 627-634

4 Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, ‘Der Vertrag zwischen Šuppiluliuma I. und Niqmandu: Eine philologische und
kulturhistorische Studie’ in Die Welt des Orients 3 (1966), pp. 206-245
5 Horst Klengel, Syria 3000 to 500 B.C. A Handbook of Political History (Berlin, 1992), p. 118
6 Marguerite Yon, ‘A Trading City: Ugarit and the West’ in Near Eastern Archaeology 63 (2000), pp. 192-193
7 Michael Heltzer, ‘The Economy of Ugarit’ in Watson and Wyatt 1999, pp. 440-441
8 Issam K. H. Halayqa, ‘The Demise of Ugarit in Light of its Connections with Ḫatti’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 42 (2010),

p. 310
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Syria. The evidence for this, however, is circumstantial.9 That Niqmepa himself appears to have been

viewed as insufficiently loyal during the Syrian revolt, despite not joining the rebels, is demonstrated

by the carving out of the districts of Siyannu and Ušnatu on the southern border of Ugarit as an

independent dual-kingdom under the overlordship of Karkemiš.10 Time and time again, Ugarit’s

rulers were reprimanded by their overlords for shirking their obligations. In particular, Ugarit’s final

kings are repeatedly scolded for failing to appear before the great king to do homage and failing to

present appropriate gifts and tribute.11 At times, these rebukes were issued on the overlord’s behalf by

officials or the King of Karkemiš, but sometimes the intransigence of the Ugaritic kings was escalated

to the level of the great king himself, as in this Ugaritic translation of a letter from Šuppiluliuma II to

Ammurapi:

But as for you, [behold] you have not at all acknowledged (your duty)! Now you (too)
belong to the Sun [i.e. the Great King of Ḫatti], your lord—you are his (cherished)
personal possession (and) servant. Now as for [yo]u, (however,) you have not at all
acknowledged (your duty towards) the Sun your lord. To me, the Sun, your lord, why
do you not come every year?12

Even more gallingly for the Hittite overlords, the kings of Ugarit also appear to have habitually

evaded their military obligations. On one occasion, the king of Ugarit was even exempted from his

vassal duty to send troops to fight the Assyrians in return for the staggering sum of 50 minas of gold—

though it seems that in the event, the Hittites went back on their promise and demanded troops and

9 Singer 1999, pp. 637-638

10 Michael C. Astour, ‘The Kingdom of Siyannu-Ušnatu’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 11 (1979), pp. 13-28
11See, for instance, RS 17.247 in Jean Nougayrol, Le Palais Royal d’Ugarit IV: Textes accadiens des archives sud. Mission
de Ras Shamra 9 (Paris, 1956), p. 191, translated in Gary Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts (Atlanta, 1996), p. 121; or RS
17.434 (KTU³ 2.36+), translated in Meindert Dijkstra, ‘Marginalia to the Ugaritic Letters in KTU (II)’ in Ugarit-
Forschungen 21 (1989), pp. 141-145
12 James Nathan Ford, ‘The Ugaritic Letter RS 18.038 (KTU³ 2.39) and the Meaning of the Term spr “lapis lazuli”

(=BH ‫“ סַ פִ יר‬lapis lazuli”)’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 40 (2008), p. 278

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chariots from Ugarit regardless.13 It was during the Assyrian war that the assertiveness of Ugarit

caused serious headaches in the Hittite foreign office. Asked to send troops and chariots to fight

alongside the great king, Ibirānu of Ugarit apparently failed to comply, instead playing for time. A

fragmentary Akkadian letter from the King of Karkemiš to the King of Ugarit reads:

As for the chariots of which you wrote to me [saying], “how many chariots?”, the Sun
(simply) says: “Send them!” And as for the troops of which you wrote … Will you deliver
what you promised? Go to the Sun!14

This letter may be connected with two others referring to the same affair. In RS 17.289, the King

of Karkemiš writes to Ibirānu of Ugarit in no uncertain terms:

This is Talmitešub, qardabbu of the Sun, who comes to you (with this tablet). He shall
see how many troops and chariots (you have). Then, prepare the troops and chariots
that the Palace has placed at your disposal! The Sun will take count! May the Sun’s
heart not be displeased in any way! (It is a matter of) life or death!15

A third letter from an Ugaritic official in Qadeš may speak to efforts to further obfuscate the true

numbers of Ugarit’s army:

My lord, there is here a messenger from the King of Karkemiš who has come to Qadeš
for chariots and expeditionary forces, and he will go to Ugarit (also). But you, my lord,
do not show him any! And let him not take any chariots or expeditionary forces! He
will come to command them to prepare themselves and [take] five days of provisions …16

Similarly, in RS 34.143 the King of Karkemiš puts the lie to the assertion by his Ugaritic counterpart

that his army is abroad in Mukiš, when in fact (according to Karkemiš) they were within the kingdom

13 Although it should be noted that the same king, assuming the benefactory of RS 17.059 can be identified as
Ammitṯamru II, had also paid more than half that sum (1400 gold shekels) for the right to execute his estranged wife.
Ugarit was a wealthy state. Singer 1999, pp. 682-683
14 RS 20.237, own translation according to transliteration in Jean Nougayrol et al., Nouveaux textes accadiens, hourrites et

ugaritiques des archives et bibliothèques privées d’Ugarit. Commentaires des textes historiques (Première partie). Ugaritica
V (Paris, 1968), pp. 102-104
15 Own translation according to transliteration in Nougayrol 1956, p. 192
16 RS 34.150, own translation according to transliteration in Pierre Bordreuil et al., Une bibliothèque au sud de la ville. Les

textes de la 34e campagne (1973). Ras Shamra-Ougarit 7 (Paris, 1991), p. 35

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in Apsuna. The chariots and soldiers that Ugarit did send, the king complains, were of inferior

quality, the horses half-starved, while the bulk of Ugarit’s elite maryannu had been held back.17

Ugarit’s reluctance to serve the will of its overlords did not go unnoticed. In RS 34.165, the

Assyrian king Šalmaneser I writes a long letter directly to Ibirānu of Ugarit informing him of his

victory over the Hittite king Tudḫaliya IV at the Battle of Niḫriya and the tensions leading up to it.18

No doubt, it was intended to undermine the overlordship of Tudḫaliya in Syria by going directly to

his most disloyal vassal.

That Ugarit was not merely the recipient of attempts to sway them to the side of another great

power, but actively flirted with the Egyptian camp, is attested in a request by Ugarit’s final king,

Ammurapi, to Pharaoh Merneptah. Asked for sculptors to erect a statue of the pharaoh in the temple

of Ba’al at Ugarit, the pharaoh diplomatically demurred, claiming that all his craftsmen were engaged

in work for the great gods of Egypt, and promised to send not sculptors, but carpenters once able.19

No doubt, Merneptah had little interest in openly antagonising Ḫatti by making a play for Ugarit.

Still, the letter illustrates the continued attempts by Ugarit to renegotiate its relationship with Egypt

and undermine the authority of her Hittite overlord.20

The picture of the Ugaritic-Hittite relationship that emerges is a dysfunctional one, marked by

mutual distrust. Ugarit was neither an easy nor a particularly willing vassal. That the Hittites were

apparently unwilling or unable to compel the city-state’s submission speaks to their weakness at the

17 Itamar Singer, ‘New Evidence on the End of the Hittite Empire’ in Eliezer D. Oren, The Sea Peoples and Their World
(Philadelphia, 2000), p. 22
18 Ibid., pp. 90-100
19 Sylvie Lackenbacher, ‘Une lettre d’Égypte’ in Marguerite Yon and Daniel Arnaud (eds.), Etudes Ougaritiques I. Travaux

1985-1995. Ras Shamra-Ougarit XIV (Paris, 2001), pp. 239-248

20 For an examination of the strategic logic of requesting a statue of the pharaoh, see Ellen F. Morris, ‘Egypt, Ugarit, the

God Ba’al, and the Puzzle of a Royal Rebuff’ in Jana Mynářová, Pavel Onderka and Peter Pavúk (eds.), There and Back
Again—the Crossroads II. Proceedings of an International Conference Held in Prague, September 15-18, 2014 (Prague,
2015), pp. 315-351
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end of the Late Bronze Age, but Ugarit’s repeated attempts to evade even the most basic vassal

obligations suggest that these were considered genuinely onerous. The economic and military strain

Ugarit and its people felt under the Hittite yoke can only have been exacerbated by demands for vast

shipments of food.

2.2. Drought and famine

Far more important to Hittite interests than Ugarit’s acts of petty rebellion, however, was its role

as a clearing house for grain from Egypt and Canaan. The diplomatic correspondence found at Ugarit

abounds with references to grain shipments, at least some of which were destined for the land of

Ḫatti.21 However, not all of these letters can be securely dated to the reign of any one king, let alone a

specific year. As Jared Miller points out, it is tempting to date texts dealing with difficult situations as

late as possible to link them to collapse, and then in turn assume they had something to do with that

collapse.22 We must caution against such circular reasoning; that being said, the preponderance of

evidence does suggest severe and chronic famines towards the end of the 13th century. Some of the

letters do name the rulers who wrote them or to whom they were addressed, and they generally speak

to a position during the final two decades of the 13th century, during the reigns of Niqmaddu III and

Ammurapi of Ugarit.23 As multiple rulers are mentioned, it seems clear that we are not dealing with

a singular event—a single bad harvest, for instance—but rather a chronic problem affecting the entire

Levantine crescent, Anatolia in particular. Ugarit appears to have played a key role in the provisioning

21 Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, ‘Die keilalphabetischen Briefe aus Ugarit (I). KTU 2.72, 2.76, 2.86, 2.87, 2.88,
2.89 und 2.90’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 41 (2009), pp. 130-131
22 Jared L. Miller, ‘Are there signs of the decline of the late Hittite state in the textual documentation from Hattuša?’ in

Stefano de Martino and Elena Devecchi (eds.), Anatolia between the 13th and the 12th century BCE (Turin, 2020), p. 240
23 Halayqa 2010, pp. 301-304

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of the city of Ḫattuša and the Hittite heartlands, providing a buffer in times of famine via its links to

fertile Egypt.

Famine is a fact of life in premodern subsistence agricultural economies, but no famines are

mentioned in the plentiful Amarna documentation.24 That the famines narrated in the Ugaritic

letters, however, were considered extraordinary even by contemporaries is evident both from the fact

that the diplomatic correspondence regarding grain shipments takes place almost exclusively at the

royal level and from its dramatic tone. For instance, in RS 18.147, a certain Pgn25 writes to an unnamed

king of Ugarit, whom he addresses as ‘my son’, as follows:

Da mein Sohn (Bitt-)Schreiben für Speisegetreide zu mir gesandt hat (mit dem Inhalt:)
„Es herrscht arge Hungersnot!“, möge mein Sohn folgendes veranlassen: Seetüchtige
Schiffe möge er bereitstellen und die Getreidelieferung [in Empfang
nehmen/abholen!]26

RS 18.038, which we have already cited en passant in our discussion of the rebukes sent to Ammurapi

by his overlord, continues more dramatically still:

And concerning the fact that you have sent a letter about food to the Sun, your lord, to
the effect that there is no food in your land: the Sun is perishing!27

The same specific shipment or series of shipments may be referred to in RS 94.2530 and 94.2523,

which both contain demands for Ammurapi to ship food supplies to southern Anatolia.28

24 Dafna Langgut, Israel Finkelstein and Thomas Litt, ‘Climate and the Late Bronze Age Collapse: New Eviddence from
the Southern Levant’ in Tel Aviv 40 (2013), p. 160
25 Pgn may be identified in several ways: as a king of Alašiya or Amurru based on the style of address and warm salutaiton,

or a Hittite official named Pukana. See Dennis Pardee, ‘Ugaritic Letters’ in William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger
(eds.), The Context of Scripture 3 (Leiden, 2003), p. 97
26 Dietrich and Loretz 2009, pp. 130-131
27 Ford 2008, p. 278. We may justifiably doubt the assertion that the great king of Ḫatti was personally starving.
28 Sylvie Lackenbacher and Florence Malbran-Labat, ‘Ugarit et les Hittites dans les archives de la “Maison d’Urtenu”’ in

Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 47 (2005), pp. 236-238 and notes 76 respectively 73, as well as a more detailed treatment
of both letters in Michael C. Lyons, ‘Requests for Food-provisions in RS 94.2523 and RS 94.2530. Reconsidering
PAD.MEŠ as Metal Ingots’ in Altorientalische Forschungen 46 (2019), pp. 15-21
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 Was Ugarit affected by the same famine, or was Ammurapi evading responsibility in order to

maintain his own country’s granaries? RS 20.212, addressed from the great king of Ḫatti to the king

of Ugarit, appears to make a similar accusation. Neither king appears to be named, although

Schwemer argues that the author is a Hittite prince writing in the name of the great king and the

recipient is Ammurapi.29 The letter is well worth quoting in its entirety:

[…] say to the king of Ugarit: with the Sun’s household, all is well.
The king has freed you from service, (but) when he gave you the sealed tablets (to that
effect), did he not (say) with regards to it, ‘what I shall write to him, he shall hear and
do!’
And why now do you not do what he writes you (to do)? Do everything just as the king,
your lord, has demanded: he has freed you (from service), but you, you shall do what
the king writes you! Now: the people of the city of Ura [i.e. the main Anatolian port
of the Hittite empire] have requested provisions of the Sun. The Sun has assigned them
2000 (measures) of grain from the land Mukiš [i.e. a Syrian state centred on Alalaḫ,
north of Ugarit]. And you shall give them a great ship and sailors so they may
transport the grain to their country. They will make one or two trips and you must not
refuse them the ship. In this matter, the Sun has dispatched to them Ali-ziti, the king’s
eunuch, and Kunni. It is a matter of life and death! Equip them at once […] Give it
to their elders. They shall be supplied either from the land Mukiš or another land and
kept alive! Give (it to them)! It is a matter of life or death!30

In this case, as in the case of grain shipments from Egypt and Canaan, it is not Ugarit which is the

provider. Even so, it appears that Ugarit’s king resisted the demand to facilitate the transport of grain,

prompting a scathing rebuke and an explicit reference to his vassal obligations. Given that Ugarit’s

merchant ships were, at least in theory, supposed to be at the disposal of the Hittite overlords—a late

letter from the king of Karkemiš to Ugarit’s queen decrees that no Ugaritic ships shall travel further

south than Byblos and Sidon, in case they shall be needed for military or logistic purposes31—it seems

29 Daniel Schwemer, ‘Briefe aus den Archiven von Ugarit: 1. Briefe in akkadischer Sprache’ in Bernd Janowski and Gernot

Wilhelm (eds.), Diplomatische Korrespondenzen der Spätbronzezeit. Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, Neue
Folge 3 (Gütersloh, 2006), pp. 258-260
30 Own translation according to transliteration in Nougayrol 1956, pp. 105-107
31 See RS 34.145 in Bordreuil 1991, pp. 32-34

12
likely that Ammurapi would have had no reason to withhold the ship and risk the great king’s

displeasure had he not either a) required them to supply his own starving country or b) feared that

giving in to the demand without a fight would have resulted in increased demands for food shipments

in the future, eventually putting Ugarit itself under greater strain.

Whether Ugarit was itself starving or feared starvation in supplying its overlord, the impact such

a system had on Ugarit should not be underestimated. As Ugarit was forced to provide for the

overlord, its own people suffered. We can postulate three assumptions:

1. Anatolia experienced chronic shortages of food during the final years of the 13th century.32

Whether this was caused by overpopulation, climactic changes, pests or other causes, they

are likely to have similarly affected the northern Levant.

2. Had Ugarit been able to easily cushion the impact of famine on Ḫatti from its own

granaries, it would have done so. That, instead, Ugarit’s kings sent to Egypt for help,

when the grain had to transported via Ugarit regardless, suggests that Ugarit’s stores were

insufficient to supply Ḫatti for any extended period of time while keeping back enough

to supply its own population.

3. The grain to provision Ḫatti would have been drawn first from the granaries of Ugarit.

Only when reserves were depleted and any further withdrawals would have placed Ugarit

itself at risk would expensive and risky purchases from Egypt have been made.

Was Ugarit starving, then? RS 34.152, containing a dramatic reference to famine, has been taken

as indicating that, despite full granaries, people in the Ugaritic countryside were starving:33

32 Horst Klengel, “Hungerjahre” in Hatti (Berlin, 1974)

33 E.g. Halayqa 2010, p. 305
13
 The gates of the house are sealed. As there is famine in your house, we will die of
hunger! If you do not come quickly, we will die of hunger! You will not see a (single)
living soul from your land!34

But Cohen and Singer demonstrate, based on prosopographical and palaeographical grounds, that

RS 34.152 originates not from the Ugaritic hinterland but from Emar, some 210 km to the east. In

Emar, we also find references to severe famine in year names and economic tablets.35 So while RS

34.152 does not tell us as much about the situation in Ugarit proper as we might like, it does help

clarify that it was not just

Anatolia that was affected by

famine around the end of the

13th century, but the entire

Syro-Anatolian region—as

well as the strain under which

Ugarit was placed as a

consequence.

Palaeoclimatic studies

bear this out further. For

instance, pollen records in

alluvial deposits around the

city of Gibala, modern Tell

Tweini, in the Kingdom of

Figure 1. Precipitation and cultivation from Gibala-Tell Tweini. Radiocarbon dates are
given as 2σ intervals. From Koniewski et al. 2010, p. 211

34
Own translation according to transliteration in Bordreuil 1991, pp. 84-86
35
Yoram Cohen and Itamar Singer, ‘A Late Synchronism between Ugarit and Emar’ in Yairah Amit et al., Essays on
Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context. A Tribute to Nadav Na’aman (Winona Lake, 2006), pp. 123-138
14
Ugarit indicate a severe and abrupt drought event ca. 3125-2775 BP (based on intercept ages).

Specifically, the pollen record indicates a straightforward relation between drought phases as

determined from alluvial deposits and a decline in indicators of arboriculture and crop cultivation,

specially of the cereal crops of the Poaceae family, which includes wheat, barley, millet and oats among

other grasses (see Fig. 1).36 Similarly, pollen analysis of core samples from the Sea of Galilee indicates

a precipitous drop in the proportion of Mediterranean trees and olive trees in particular in the pollen

record that began ca. 1250-1100 BCE and lasted for about a century, and was not accompanied by signs

of anthropogenic forest shrinkage.37 Cores from Larnaca Salt Lake on the southern coast of Cyprus

similarly display evidence for a rapid shrinkage of forested areas, which turned into dry steppe. 38 A

number of corroborating studies show similar symptoms of drought in areas ranging from Greece

and Anatolia to Egypt.39 This megadrought event has been linked to contemporaneous cooling in

Europe as a consequence of Bond Event 2, which saw a large increase in arctic drift ice travelling south

around 3.2 ka BP.40 It should be noted, however, that all of these studies have been criticised for the

uncertainty of their dating and the low resolution of their samples.41

Regardless of its origin, it seems clear that the palaeoclimatic record, at least as it stands, supports

the epistolary evidence. At the end of the 13th century, the entire Levantine crescent including

Northern Syria was struck by a severe drought, which caused a precipitous decline in agricultural

36 David Kaniewski et al., ‘Late second-early first millennium BC abrupt climate changes in coastal Syria and their possible

significance for the history of the Eastern Mediterranean’ in Quaternary Research 74 (2010), pp. 207-215
37 Langgut, Finkelstein and Litt 2013, pp. 149-175
38 David Kaniewski et al., ‘Enrivonmental Roots of the Late Bronze Age Crisis’ in PLoS ONE 8 (2013), pp. 1-10
39 David Kaniewski, Joël Guiot and Elise Van Campo, ‘Drought and societal collapse 3200 years ago in the Eastern

Mediterranean: a review’ in WIREs Climate Change 6 (2015), pp. 369-382

40 David Kaniewski and Elise Van Campo, ‘3.2 ka BP Megadrought and the Late Bronze Age Collapse’ in Harvey Weiss,

Megadrought and Collapse: From Early Agriculture to Angkor (Oxford, 2017), p. 162
41 A. Bernard Knapp and Stuart W. Manning, ‘Crisis in Context: The End of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern

Mediterranean’ in American Journal of Archaeology 120 (2016), pp. 103-107

15
production. Ugarit’s requirement to supply the Hittite overlords can only have exacerbated this

problem, and may in turn have increased the political impetus to resist the great king’s demands, even

at the risk of damaging relations with Ugarit’s protecting power.

2.3. Social disorder and banditry

That protection, it must be said, was sorely needed. Even before the arrival of the Sea Peoples (if

we can speak of an ‘arrival’), Ugarit was beset by serious social difficulties, including persistent and

successful banditry.

The problems of the Middle and Late Bronze Age Levant with banditry are well-known and

well-documented. They feature prominently in the Amarna Letters, where marginal groups known

as ḫabiru (sum. LÚ.SA.GAZ, egy. ‘prw, ug. ‘prm) are described as occasionally working for,

occasionally working against settled rulers routinely bedevil the trade between great powers.42 Both

the meaning of the term and the social role and status of the group it describes remain ambiguous,

both contemporarily and in the modern literature, in part complicated by the old and ongoing debate

on the relation between ḫabiru and Hebrews.43

The origin of the ḫabiru remains equally unclear. It seems that they were outcasts and refugees

from the lowest strata of both tribal and urban societies, which were closely linked, driven to band

together in the mountains by poverty and social disintegration.44 In particular, the apparent failure

of social networks to cushion the impact of spiralling debt, and the lack of regular debt forgiveness

42 Jean Bottéro, ‘Ḫabiru’ in Dietz Otto Edzard et al. (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie 4 (Berlin, 1972-1975), pp. 14-27
43 Eva von Dassow, ‘Habiru’ in Roger S. Barnell et al. (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (Chichester, 2013), pp.
3014-3015
44 Michael B. Rowton ‘Dimorphic Structure and the Problem of the ‘apirû-‘ibrîm’ in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 35

(1976), pp. 13-20

16
by Middle and Late Bronze Age kings, has been blamed for driving otherwise prosperous people into

the mountains.45 A single bad harvest might put a farmer in the unenviable position of having to

borrow grain to support his family, borrow more to seed his fields, and either borrow yet more to pay

off ruinous interest—or work off the debt as a debt slave, thus further reducing the time he might

spend working his own fields. Thus, a person might be caught in a vicious cycle that could be resolved

only by escaping to become a ḫabiru.46

The situation at Ugarit was no different. At least some groups of ḫabiru appear to have been

integrated into Ugaritic society and administration, receiving rations from the palace.47

Unfortunately, while Ugarit provided the key missing link for the reading of sum. LÚ.SA.GAZ as ug.

‘prm, the documentation on Ugarit’s ḫabiru tells us scarcely more than that they took an important

role in the politics of the kingdom and were apparently composed of locals rather than invading bands

of nomads.48 We can see some evidence for economic tensions and rising inequality even before the

famines discussed above: for instance, it seems clear that wealth and economic activity became

increasingly concentrated in the hands of the royal court and the maryannu class over the second half

of the 13th century.49 Additionally, we can see in the division and subdivision of dwelling space in the

city of Ugarit an increase in population. As more and more people squeezed into the city, the size of

individual family homes decreased as buildings were repeatedly subdivided.50 We may surmise that

such an increase in the urban population was partially the result of people giving up agricultural work

45 Mario Liverani, ‘Il fuoruscitismo in Siria nella tarda

età del bronzo’ in Rivista Storica Italiana 77 (1965), pp. 315-336
46 Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC (Chichester, 2004), p. 179
47 Juan-Pablo Vita, ‘The Society of Ugarit’ in Watson and Wyatt 1999, p. 461-462
48 Oswald Loretz, Habiru-Hebräer. Eine sozio-linguistische Studie über die Herkunft des Gentiliziums ‘ibrî vom

Apellativum ḫabiru (Berlin, 1984), pp. 83-88

49 Marguerite Yon, The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra (Winona Lake, 2006), p. 21
50 Marguerite Yon, ‘Ugarit: The Urban Habitat. The Present State of the Archaeological Picture’ in Bulletin of the

American School of Oriental Research 286 (1992), pp. 19-34

17
in the countryside in the wake of droughts, increased tithes and so forth to reap the benefits of

proximity to the royal court and the maryannu.51

What is clear, however, is that many of Ugarit’s people must have turned to banditry, whether

associated with the ḫabiru or not, and that successive kings were either unable or unwilling to secure

their trade routes. Bilateral treaties governed ‘international’ trade in Syria, in addition to regulations

pronounced by the King of Karkemiš, and Ugarit’s archives abound with demands for compensation

and restitution following robberies and attacks on foreign merchants committed within the Kingdom

of Ugarit.52 In theory, the indemnity for killing a merchant under Hittite protection abroad could be

as high as 100 minas, an enormous sum even for a king, though in practice a more reasonable sum of

about 3 minas was commonly demanded.53 Where the actual perpetrator could not be found, the

community was liable.54 While it is difficult to assess the actual dangers faced by travelling

merchants—after all, our sources represent only the minority of business trips that went awry and

went to the courts—it seems clear that the roads and countryside of Ugarit were chronically raided

by groups of bandits. Similarly, the apparent bias towards merchants of Ura in our sources may reflect

either deliberate efforts by Ugarit’s kings and elites to weaken foreign traders’ role in the Ugaritic

economy through plausibly deniable targeted bandit attacks, as Halayqa suggests, 55 or merely the

enforcement bias of Anatolian merchants under Hittite protection being more likely to have their

51 Halayqa 2010, p. 299

52 For a listing of primary sources dealing with such cases, see Heltzer 1999, pp. 440-441
53 Harry A. Hoffner, ‘Some Thoughts on Merchants and Trade in the Hittite Kingdom’ in Thomas Richter, Doris Prechel

and Jörg Klinger (eds.), Kulturgeschichten. Altorientalische Studien für Volkert Haas zum 65. Geburtstag (Saarbrücken,
2002), pp. 182-183
54 Singer 1999, pp. 651-652
55 Halayqa 2010, p. 307

18
demands for redress recorded and met. Of course, as Emanuel argues, the difference between state

and nonstate action in the Late Bronze Age is not always clear.56

Even so, the problem of banditry was clearly real, and clearly present during the crisis at the end

of the Late Bronze Age. A fascinating Ugaritic letter, RS 19.11, which we shall discuss in more detail

below, seems at least to offer clear testimony to the distress experienced by outlying villages in the face

of bandit raids (but see below):

Zu Ġrdn, meinem Herrn, sprich:

Als der Wegeräuber ankam, schlug er nieder den Wachmann und plünderte den Ort;
das Getreide von den Tennen schaffte er fürwahr weg, auch die Weinberge ruinierte er!
Der Ort ist ruiniert! Und (das) wisse, wisse!57

If we accept this translation, it must refer to a stunningly bold bandit raid on a settled place. Clearly,

the royal army was either unable or unwilling to put a stop to banditry, even when Ugaritic villages

and estates were targeted directly. If so, wealthy and weak Ugarit ran a great risk at resisting its

protecting overlord during a time of famine, and placed itself at peril from both internal and external

raiders.

3. The last days of Ugarit?

3.1. The Šikala letter (RS 34.129)

Having shown the fundamental weakness of Ugarit at the end of the Late Bronze Age, we may

now turn to its final days, and the question of its ultimate downfall. It is clear that Ugarit was

56 Jeffrey P. Emanuel, ‘Differentiating Naval Warfare and Piracy in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age Mediterranean:
Possibility or Pipe Dream?’ in Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spano and Marek Węcowski (eds.), Change, Continuity and
Connectivity: North-Eastern Mediterranean at the Turn of the Bronze Age and in the Early Iron Age (Wiesbaden, 2018),
pp. 241-255
57 Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, ‘Die Seevölkergruppe der ṯrtnm „Šardana/Šerdena“ in Ugarit. Bemerkungen

zum Brief KTU 2.61 und zur Liste KTU³ 4.497+…’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 42 (2010), pp. 111-112
19
politically, economically and militarily weak, beset by famine and bandits, yet it need not have fallen.

That it did was the result of additional outside pressure in the form of military attacks from the so-

called ‘Sea Peoples’, who found Ugarit an easy target. In the following sections, however, we may

discern hints that these, too, were not entirely new arrivals, but a number of newly arrived refugees

from Europe and Anatolia, earlier, well-familiar foreigners, and disaffected locals.

Perhaps the clearest evidence for the Sea Peoples at Ugarit comes in the form of a number of

letters, which we shall discuss in detail. The first of these is RS 34.129, published as RSO 7, 12. Found

at the ‘House of Urtenu’ after being revealed by the construction of a military bunker during the Yom

Kippur War in 1973, it represents part of a large and important archive at the house of a man named

Urtenu, a magnate and royal official who was entrusted with diplomatic duties.58 It deals with an

urgent demand by the great king of Ḫatti for extradition of a Ugaritic agent with information about

a people named the Šikala.59

um-ma dutu-ši-m[a] (1-4) Speak to the prefect (of Ugarit), thus says
lugal gal-ú the Sun, the Great King:
a-na lú sà-ki-in-ni
qí-bi-ma
―
a-nu-um-ma it-tu-ka (5-8) Now it is the case with you that the king,
⸢lugal⸣ en-ka ṣe-ḫe-er your lord, is [too] young. He knows nothing.
mi-im-ma la-a i-di
ù a-na-ku dutu-ši (9-14) And I, the Sun, had sent him a command
a-na muḫ-ḫi-šu um-da-e-ra-šu regarding Ibnadušu, whom the people of Šikala
aš-šum Iib-na-du-šu who live on boats had abducted.
ša lú.meš kur.uruši-ka-la-ia-ú
iṣ-bu-tu-šu-ú-ni
ša i-na muḫ-ḫi gišmá.meš
us-bu-ú-ni
―
a-nu-um-ma <m>ni-ir-ga-i-li (15-19) Now I send Nirga’ili, who is kartappu
it-tu-ia with me, to you.

58 Yon 2004, pp. 87-88

59 Own translation, transliteration according to Bordreuil 1991, pp. 38-39

20
 lú kar-tap-pu
a-na muḫ-ḫi-ka
um-da-e-ra-ku
ù at-ta mib-na-du-šu (20-24) And you, send Ibnadušu, whom the
ša lú.meš kur.uruši-ka-la-ú people of Šikala had abducted, to me!
iṣ-bu-tu-šu-ni
a-na muḫ-ḫi-ia
šu-up-ra-šu
a-ma-te ša kur.uruši-ki-la (25-30) I shall question him concerning the land
a-ša-al-šu Šikala and afterwards he may return to Ugarit.
ù a-na ku-ta-li-šu
a-na kur.uruu-ga-ri-ta
i-tu-ur-ra
i-ta-la-ka
―
(Three erased lines)

Though neither king’s name is mentioned, we may justifiably place this text in the reign of

Ammurapi of Ugarit respectively Šuppiluliuma II based on the context of the Urtenu archive—based

on the claim of Ammurapi’s youth, perhaps very early in his twenty-year reign.60 The kartappu

Nirga’ili may perhaps be identified with the Hittite prince and diplomat Nerikkaili, son of Ḫattušili

III.61 The extraordinarily brusque tone with which the Great King criticises Ammurapi’s failure to

comply with his instructions is astounding. It may have borne the weight of years of frustration with

an intransigent vassal, as well as a difficult situation.

The main reason for this letter’s special importance, however, is the explicit reference to the

‘people of Šikala’, which have generally been linked with the Šekeleš of Egyptian inscriptions and also

with the Sicels (lat. Siculi, gr. Σικελοί) of eastern Sicily.62 The Šekeleš are mentioned as being among

60 Gustav A. Lehmann, ‘Die Šikalājū – ein neues Zeugnis zu den “Seevölker”-Heerfahrten im späten 13. Jh. V. Chr. (RS
34.129)’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 11 (1979), p. 481
61 Singer 1999, p. 722
62 Eric H. Cline, ‘The Sea Peoples’ in Jeffrey Spier, Timothy F. Potts and Sara E. Cole (eds.), Beyond the Nile. Egypt and

the Classical World (Los Angeles, 2018), pp. 29-34

21
the invaders defeated by Ramesses III according to the Medinet Habu inscriptions.63 Particularly

noteworthy is the clarification that the people of Šikala ‘live on boats’, which further bolsters the

identification with one of the Sea Peoples.

The context of the letter, unfortunately, remains obscure. If we accept the reference to

Ammurapi’s youth as accurate rather than merely invective, we must place it very early in his reign. If

so, it means that the people of Šikala represented an immediate concern to the Hittite great king even

decades before the fall of Ugarit. The identity of Ibnadušu is unclear, but the use of the verb ṣabātu

“to seize, arrest, capture”64 in lines 13 and 22 clearly suggests that his stay among the people of Šikala

was involuntary. He may well have been an Ugaritic merchant or subject kidnapped during a raid.

Clearly, then, the people of Šikala were raiding the Syrian and Anatolian littoral for decades even

before the climactic fall of Ugarit, and both Ugarit’s and Ḫatti’s kings found themselves unable to do

anything about it.

3.2. Three letters on enemy ships (RS 20.18, RS L 1, RS 20.238,)

The three letters RS L 1, RS 20.238 and RS 20.18 have generally been grouped together and related

to the final days of Ugarit, as in their original publication in Ugaritica V.65 All three were found at

the ‘House of Rapanu’, a large complex in the so-called Residential Quarter east of the royal palace,

which was later subdivided into two smaller units. Judging from the large archives of more than 200

tablets found in the northern part of the complex, it may have been the house of a high-ranking scribe

63 Robert Drews, ‘Medinet Habu: Oxcarts, Ships and Migration Theories’ in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 59 (2000),
pp. 161-190
64 ṣabātu in A. Leo Oppenheim et al. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

(CAD) 16 (Chicago, 1962), pp. 5-41

65 Nougayrol et al. 1968, pp. 79-86

22
and official named Rapanu who handled sensitive diplomatic affairs at the close of the 13th century.

Among the correspondence found at his house are letters to the king of Karkemiš concerning the

abduction of a Hittite princess, correspondence with the Pharaoh, and the so-called “general’s letter”

containing detailed descriptions of Ugarit’s border defences.66 The letters are presented here in the

order they were given on publication, although their connection to each other and their order remains

somewhat dubious.

3.2.1. RS 20.1867

um-ma me-šu-wa-ra (1-4) Speak to the King of Ugarit, thus speaks

lú
maškim gal ša kura-la-ši-a Ešuwara, chief prefect of Alašiya:
a-na lugal kurú-ga-ri-it
qí-bi-ma
—
a-na ku-a-ša kur-t[i]-ka4-ma (5-6) May you and your country be well!
lu-ú šul-mu
—
aš-šum a-ba-te.me ša lúkúr.me (7-11) As for the matter concerning (those)
al-lu-ti dumu.me kúr-ti-ka4 enemies: it was the sons of your country and
giš
má.me-ka4-ma your own ships that did this!
a-ba-ta an-ni-ta
i-te-ep-šu-ni
ù i-te-eq-ta an-nu-ti (12-13) And it was people from your country
dumu.meš kur-ti-ka4 i-[t]e-ep-šu who committed these transgressions.
—
ù it-ti-ia-ma (14-15) So do not be angry with me!
lu la te-ze-em-me
—
ù i-na-an-na (16-24) Now then, the twenty enemy ships,
20 gišmá.meš ša lúkúr.me before they could reach the mountains, have not
i-na ḫur.s[a]g.me la-a-ma stayed around, but have quickly moved on, and
it-ta[l-ka]-ni-me we do not know where they are encamped.
ù l[a] it-ta-za-za
ù ḫa-mut-ta

66 Yon 2006, pp. 73-76

67Own translation according to transliteration in Frederik Christiaan Woudhuizen, The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples
(PhD thesis, Rotterdam, 2006), p. 50.
23
 it-ta-mu-uš-me
ù a-šar it-ta-dú-ú
la ni-i-de4-me
aš-šum ud-dá-i-ka4 (25-29) I am writing to you so that you may
aš-šum na-ṣa-ri-ka4 know it and defend yourself. May you know it!
al-tap-ra-ku
lu-ú-ti-i-de4-me

3.2.2. RS L 168

u[m-m]a lugal-ma (1-4) Speak to Ammurapi, king of Ugarit, thus

a-na mam-mu-ra-pi says the king:
lugal kurú-ga-rit
qí-bi-ma
—
lu-ú š[u]l-mu a-na ugu-ḫi-ka (5-7) May you be well! May the gods keep you in
dingir-nu a-na šul-ma-ni good health!
pap-ru-ka
—
ša tàš-pu-ra ma-a gišmá.méškur (8-14) Concerning what you wrote me, (saying):
i-na šà a.ab.ba “they have seen enemy ships at sea”—now, if
i-ta-am-ru-m[a] they have indeed seen ships, make yourself as
ù šúm-ma ki-it-tu strong as you can!
giš
má.meš i-ta-am-ru
ù lu dú-nu-na[-ta]
dan-niš i-na-an-n[a]
at-tu-ka [x-x] (15-17) Where are your own troops and chariots
érin.meš-ka gišgigir.m[eš-ka] (stationed)?
a-ia-ka-ma-a
aš-bu ul it-ta-ka-ma-a (18-23) Are they not stationed with you? (If so,)
aš-bu i-i[a]-nu-um-ma-a where are they? Who is sending you after (?) the
i-na ḫi?!-re-et lúkur enemy?
ma-am-ma ú-nam-maš-ka
uru.didli.ḫi.a-ka bàd.meš (24-30) Surround your towns with walls; bring
li-i-mi troops and chariots inside them and await the
érin.meš ù gišgigir.meš enemy at full strength!
i-na šà šu-ri-ib
pa-ni lúkur dú-gu5-ul
ù dú-nu-na-ta
dan-niš

68 Own translation according to transliteration ibid., pp. 48-49

24
 3.2.3. RS 20.23869

a-na lugal kura-la-ši-ia (1-4) Speak to the king of Alašiya, my father;

a-bi-ia qí-bi-ma thus says the king of Ugarit, your son:
um-ma lugal kuru-ga-ri-it
dumu-ka-ma
—
a-na gìr.meš a-bi-ia a[m-qu]t (5-11) I fall abundantly (on my knees) before my
a-na ugu-ḫi a-bi-ia lu-ú š[u]l-m[u] father. May my father be well! May your houses,
a-na é.ḫi.a-ka nitlam4.meš-k[a] érin-ka your wives, your troops, may everything
a-na gab-bi [m]im-mu-ú whatsoever that belongs to the king of Alašiya,
ša lugal kura-la-ši-i[a] my father, be very very well!
a-bi-ia d[a]n-niš dan-niš
lu-ú šul-m[u]
—
a-bi a-nu-ma gišmá.meš (12-18) My father: now the ships of the enemy
ša lú.meškúr il-la-ka are coming and they are burning down my
[u]ru.ḫi.a-ia i-na izi : i-ša-ti towns with fire! They have done unseemly
i-ša-ri-ip things in the land!
ù a-ma-at
[la]-a ba-ni-ta
[i-n]a šà-bi kur i-te-e[p]-šú
a-bu-ia ú-ul-i-[d]e (19-26) My father does not know that all the
ki-i gab-bu érin.meš e[n] troops of my father’s lord are in Ḫatti and all my
a-bi-ia ships are in Lukka. They have yet to arrive, and
i-na kurḫa-at-ti the land thus lies abandoned! May my father
aš-bu ù gab-bu gišmá.meš-[i]a know this!
i-na ku[r]lu-uk-ka-a
aš-bu [a-d]i-ni ul ik-šu-da-ni
ù kur-[t]u4 ka-am-ma na-da-at
a-bu-ia a-ma-at an-ni-ta5
[l]u-ú i-de i-na-an-na
7 gišmá.meš ša lú.meškúr
(27-31) Truly, the seven enemy ships that are now
[š]a il-la-ka-a[n]-ni
approaching have done evil things to us.
ù a-ma-at maš-ik-ta
it-ep-šu-na-a-ši
i-na-an-na šum-ma gišmá.[meš]
(32-36) Now then: if there are additional enemy
ša lú.meškúr ša-na-t[u4]
ship[s], send me news of it somehow, that I may
i-ba-aš-ši-mi ṭé-m[a]
know it!
[a-i]a-ka-am-ma šu-up-r[a]-ni
ù lu-ú i-de4

69 Own translation according to transliteration ibid., p. 49

25
 It is easy to see why these three letters, grouped together as an Alašiyan dossier, have attracted a

great deal of attention. Even if no name is given to the attackers, they appear to be indubitably linked

to the final raids on Ugarit by the Sea Peoples. We make the following observations:

1. The ordering and grouping of the three letters is, to an extent, speculative. While RS

20.18 and RS 20.238 clearly state their origin respectively destination in Alašiya, RS L 1

does not. While Nougayrol et al. in their original publication included it in the Alašiya

dossier, more recently it has been convincingly argued on formal grounds that the letter

may, in fact, be from the king of Karkemiš.70 If so, RS 20.18 may well be a response to the

request for information in RS 20.238, while RS L 1 represents the response of a rather

disinterested Hittite viceroy to a request for troops. We may well imagine the frustration

Ammurapi of Ugarit may have felt at his overlord’s useless advice to ‘make yourself as

strong as you can’, though given the habitual intransigence of Ugarit the disinterest may

not be surprising or unwarranted.71

2. RS 20.18 speaks of twenty enemy ships, RS 20.238 of only seven. Regardless of Klengel’s

argument that these represent typological rather than real numbers,72 we may assume

these to be separate flotillas. As Singer points out, even a small raiding flotilla may wreak

havoc on an unprepared coastline, striking and retreating before defenders can react.73 If

these two letters do correspond to one another, we may then assume at least two separate

70 Masamichi Yamada, ‘Reconsidering the Letters from the “King” in the Ugarit Texts: Royal Correspondence of
Carcemish?’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 24 (1992), pp. 431-446
71 Though see the possible promise of military support from Karkemiš to the elders of Ugarit in RS 88.2009 given in

Florence Malbran-Labat, ‘La découverte épigraphique de 1994 à Ougarit (les textes akkadiens)’ in Studi Micenei ed Egeo-
Anatolici 36 (1995), pp. 103-111
72 Klengel 1992, p. 150
73 Singer 1999, p. 720

26
 flotillas raiding the coastline of Ugarit at the same time. Alternatively, they may represent

two different raids separated by a longer period of time, which would point to prolonged

raiding by diverse groups of people.

3. Ammurapi claims that “all” his troops are in Ḫatti and his ships in Lukka. In light of the

previously-discussed Ugaritic attempts to withhold their troops from Hittite control,

this claim seems puzzling. Certainly, the Hittites under Šuppiluliuma II were very active

off the Anatolian coast at the end of the 13th century; the enemy thought at the famous

amphibious Battle of Alašiya may well have been groups of so-called Sea Peoples who

had taken over the kingdom and were threatening the Anatolian mainland.74 Ugaritic

ships and troops may well have supported Hittite campaigning. With reference to a

number of letters on military subject, including the above-mentioned RS 34.143, Singer

reconstructs a series of events according to which an enemy bridgehead was established

at Mukiš, north of Ugarit, and Ugarit failed to send its troops to support the Hittite

forces fighting there, preferring to await the enemy on their own.75 In the Ugaritic letter

RS 16.402, a general named Irr-Šarruma encamped near Mukiš demands 2000 additional

horses, bitterly pointing out that he cannot fight the enemy with only his wife and

children.76 But in this view, Ammurapi could hardly have claimed his troops were in

Ḫatti and his ships in Lukka. Singer appears to connect the two letters by taking

Ammurapi’s claims in RS 20.238 as a lie, when in fact (as was known to the king of

74 Itamar Singer, ‘Great Kings of Tarḫuntašša’ in Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 38 (1996), pp. 63-71
75 Singer 1999, pp. 723-725
76
Charles Virolleaud, Le Palais Royal d’Ugarit II. Textes en cunéiformes alphabétiques des archives est, ouest et centrales.
Mission de Ras Shamra 7 (Paris, 1957), pp. 25-28
27
 Karkemiš) Ugarit’s elite troops were at home.77 But it seems unlikely that any seaborne

enemy could establish a bridgehead and commit to serious fighting in Mukiš without

first taking control of Cyprus as a base of operations, or alternatively some port further

up the Anatolian coast. If Alašiya had already fallen to the same enemy Ugarit was now

contending with, Ammurapi would not have asked it for intelligence. If we assume that

the Mukiš campaign and the letters from the Alašiya dossier are connected—there is no

extrinsic reason to assume they are—, it must be in terms of a longer series of coastal raids,

and the two Alašiya letters must have been composed some time before the seaborne

enemies had moved on from raids along the coastline to a fullscale invasion.

4. Ešuwara, writing on behalf of the king of Alašiya, appears to reject an insinuation that

Alašiyan subjects were involved in the raids on Ugarit, saying “it was people from your

own country who committed these transgressions.” If we take Ešuwara at his words—if

Alašiya was either a base of operations for raiders or an early target, he may well have been

familiar with the attackers—Ugarit’s coastline was raided by its own people. We have

already discussed the social tensions straining the fabric of Ugaritic society. It seems

extremely plausible to imagine a scenario wherein outside forces experienced in coastal

raiding might be joined by or at least inspire the outcasts of Ugarit’s society, such as the

ḫabiru and other disaffected groups. Ugaritic locals among the raiders would have

provided knowledge of the area, safe havens ashore and connections to locals who could

resupply a raiding flotilla. In other words, Canaanites from Ugarit will almost certainly

77 Singer 1999, p. 725

28
 have been among the numbers of the Sea Peoples that contributed to Ugarit’s fall—even

if they then failed to move on to Egypt and be recorded in Ramesses’ inscriptions there.

3.3. Other written sources

We are on less certain ground still when it comes to other written sources that have been ascribed

to the final calamity of Ugarit. For a long time, it seemed that the ca. 150 tablets found in the famous

and singular ‘tablet oven’ in Courtyard V of the royal palace could be securely dated to the very last

day of the royal administration, having been placed in the oven for firing but never removed on

account of the city’s fall. Much of the literature, therefore, interpreted the tablets found there through

the lens of Ugarit’s fall and sought to fit them into a narrative of chaos and destruction. In 1990,

however, examination of Claude Schaeffer’s original excavation’s photographs suggest that the debris

was that of a collapsed upper storey; the tablets’ stacked arrangement not occasioned by firing in an

oven but careful packing in an overturned basket. The oven itself was installed by later squatters.78

Accordingly, the so-called ‘oven tablets’ can no longer be dated automatically to the final days of the

city. That very interpretation has, admittedly, always been difficult. Out of the 157 ‘oven tablets’, some

144 concern administrative business as usual, while two texts appear to be religious in nature. We

cannot easily discern why they were grouped together, save perhaps that a large number of the texts

appear to be Ugaritic translations of incoming letters.79

78 Yves Calvet, ‘Les bassins du palais royal d’Ougarit’ in Syria 67 (1990), pp. 39-42. For an English summary, see Alan
Millard, ‘The Last Tablets of Ugarit’ in Marguerite Yon, Maurice Sznycer and Pierre Bordreuil (eds.), Le pays d’Ougarit
autour de 1200 av. J.-C. Actes du Colloque International Paris, 28 juin-1er juillet 1993. Ras Shamra-Ougarit XI (1996), pp.
120-124
79 Millard 1996, pp. 120-121

29
 Regardless, some of the ‘oven texts’ may still shed light on the fall of Ugarit. One well-known

letter, RS 18.148, has an Ugaritic official named Yadunu “who was placed over his [i.e. the king’s]

children” exhort the king to “verily equip sh[ips], one hundred and fifty ships may you equip …”80

As Astour already recognised in 1965, 150 ships would be an astonishing number, “superior to the

naval resources of any state in pre-classical Greece”.81 Even as a fleet in being, such a fleet would have

had little difficulty protecting Ugarit’s shoreline from the seven to twenty enemy ships attested in the

royal letters discussed above. Considering Yadunu’s stated role and the fact that the king’s reply on the

tablet’s reverse makes no mention of ships but merely exhorts the official to “not abase the (dynastic)

family” and (apparently) keep the king’s children safe, we may safely follow Lambrou-Philipson’s

argument that this is a wildly unrealistic number given by an official, perhaps a tutor, who was

unfamiliar with the actual naval capabilities of the Ugaritic state.82 Even so, the letter raises the

question of why Yadunu would demand relief ships in the first place. It seems reasonable to conclude

that Yadunu had been sent away from Ugarit with the royal children and felt himself and his charges

threatened by seaborne raiders.

We have already mentioned RS 19.11 above, citing the German translation of Dietrich and Loretz

in UF 42. We cite it here again for convenience’s sake.

Zu Ġrdn, meinem Herrn, sprich:

Als der Wegeräuber ankam, schlug er nieder den Wachmann und plünderte den Ort;
das Getreide von den Tennen schaffte er fürwahr weg, auch die Weinberge ruinierte er!
Der Ort ist ruiniert! Und (das) wisse, wisse!83

80 Connie Lambrou-Philipson, ‘Ugarit: A late Bronze Age thalassocracy? The evidence of the textual sources’ in
Orientalia 62 (1993), pp. 163-164
81 Michael C. Astour, ‘New Evidence on the Last Days of Ugarit’ in American Journal of Archaeology 69 (1965), p. 256
82 Lambrou-Philipson, pp. 163-170
83 Dietrich and Loretz 2010, pp. 111-112

30
As they note in their introduction, however, this short letter has spawned a large number of divergent

interpretations based on a wide array of epigraphic and grammatical problems.84 The tablet is a

hastily-prepared palimpsest, written in “klobig-unbeholfenen, mitunter sogar außergewöhnlichen”

letter forms.85 Both factors add to the general impression of the urgency of the letter’s contents. Much

of the debate concerning RS 19.11 focuses on the interpretation of line 3. Particularly interesting for

our context is the meaning of the term bn ḫrn which connotes the subject, translated as “der

Wegeräuber” (“the highwayman”) by Dietrich and Loretz on the assumption that it represents a

Ugaritic equivalent to Akkadian mār ḫarrāni, “son of the caravan/raid” and refers to the leader of

the bandits.86 We cannot comment on their reading of the Ugaritic, but “Wegeräuber” seems to be

an overly specific translation of akk. mār ḫarrāni. The CAD suggests two meanings that fit the

context, namely “military campaign, expedition, raid” respectively “expeditionary force, army”.87 The

semantic spectrum of ḫarrānu thus does not allow us to restrict ourselves to “highwayman” and may

include anything from a bandit gang to a well-organised army, including seaborne raiders.88 The

difference in meaning is, no doubt, slight, but we would suggest “raider” or simply, more loosely,

“attacker”. Similarly, Dietrich and Loretz take the Hurrian loan ḫrd (1) “(royal) guard, militia,

troop(s)”; (2) “soldier of the guard, militiaman”89 to refer to a singular guard, when it may also be a

collective singular referring to a unit of soldiers. Compare and contrast Singer’s wildly divergent

translation:

84 Ibid, p. 110
85 Ibid., p. 112
86 Ibid., p. 114-115
87 ḫarrānu in A. Leo Oppenheim et al. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of
Chicago (CAD) 66 (Chicago, 1956), pp. 125-126
88 We do not understand Dietrich and Loretz’s assumption that the attack described in RS 19.11 must necessarily have

been by land. Dietrich and Loretz 2010, p. 121

89 ḫrd in Gregorio del Omlo Lete, Joaquín Sanmartin and Wilfred G. E. Watson (ed. and transl.), A Dictionary oft he

Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition (Leiden, 2015), p. 399

31
 When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. 90

In either case, RS 19.11 provides ample and dramatic evidence of raiding. The difference lies in whether

to interpret it as referring to an isolated bandit raid, perhaps decades before Ugarit’s end (albeit part

of a chronic pattern of social outcasts turning to banditry) or a prelude to the invasion of Ugarit by

the Sea Peoples.

3.4. Excursus: Sea People in Ugarit?

Another matter of debate spawned by RS 19.11 is the interpretation of the addressee’s name,

variously transcribed Ž(?)rdn,91 Ḏrdn92 and Ġrdn.93 The first two readings suggest an unusual spelling

of a name Ṯrdn, which would be the Ugaritic cognate to Egyptian Šerden. However, Dietrich and

Loretz read a sign Ġ instead and suggest an etymology based on the aforementioned noun ḫrd ->

ġuradān “Wachmann, Wachhabender”.94 We are inclined to agree based on both their copy and that

of Virolleaud, which seem to clearly depict a horizontal wedge and an immediately adjoining large

Winkelhaken. Accordingly, we cannot take the addressee of RS 19.11 to bear an ethnonymic name that

would indicate a presence of Šerden at Ugarit.

There are, however, other attestations of the term ṯrd/tn(m) in Ugarit, which appear related to

the šerdanū known from the Amarna correspondence.95 Its meaning has been the subject of

considerable debate. Virolleaud and Rainey saw in it a link to hbr. šrt “to serve”,96 while Sanmartín

90 Singer 1999, p. 726

91 Charles Virolleaud, Le Palais Royal d’Ugarit V. Textes en cunéiformes alphabétiques des archives sud, sud-ouest et du
petit palais. Mission de Ras Shamra 11 (Paris, 1965), p. 137
92 Singer 1999, p. 726
93 Dietrich and Loretz 2010, p. 111
94 Ibid., p. 113
95 Oswald Loretz, ‘Les Šerdanū et la fin d’Ougarit. A propos des documents d’Égypte, de Byblos et d’Ougarit relatifs aux

Shardana’ in Yon, Sznycer and Bordreuil 1996, pp. 127-128

96 Anson F. Rainey, ‘The Military Personnel of Ugarit’ in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965), p. 26

32
argues strongly for a link with akk. širtennu “chief judge (in Nuzi)” and suggests a translation of

“Oberrichter”.97 But such a reading seems untenable given the contexts in which the word appears.

It is clear that we are dealing with a large group of people that appears in the context of the royal

palace.98 Moreover, the join of four fragments in KTU³ 4.497+… undertaken by Dietrich and Loretz

clearly speaks of a group of ṯrtn(m) under the command of an officer with a Semitic name. Each of

the listed ṯrtn(m) is assigned a chariot.99 Clearly, then, we are dealing with an occupational group that

was at least partly military in nature, and with the high-status chariotry to boot. The assumption that

we are dealing with elite foreign mercenaries, i.e. the Šerden, lies not far from that realisation.

What of other Sea People groups at Ugarit? We are not aware of any of the other groups known

from Egypt appearing in texts at

Ugarit. Archaeology, however, adds

to the picture. The excavations at

Ras Shamra have revealed a plethora

of links with the Aegean world, and

particularly Cyprus—on the

assumption that Aegean elements

played a major role in the Sea

Peoples’ raids, which seems to have

become the consensus in recent

Figure 2. Mycenaean krater and shallow bowl and Cypriot juglet from Ugarit. From
Yon 2006, p. 145

97 Joaquín Sanmartín, ‘Glossen zum ugaritischen Lexikon (VI) – Ug. ṯrtn “Oberrichter”’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 21 (1989),

pp. 345-348
98 Ibid., pp. 346-347
99 Dietrich and Loretz 2010, pp. 119-120

33
 scholarship,100 we may look there for

signs of the Sea Peoples. The results,

however, are less than illuminating:

while a great deal of Aegean-type

ceramic, including Mycenean Late

Helladic IIIB ware (Fig. 2), was found

at Ugarit, we can say little about the

people who produced them or their

role in Ugarit. It appears that Aegean

ware was imported largely for

aristocratic clients in small quantities

Figure 3. Two Mycenaean and one Cypriot (bottom right) rhytons. From Yon
2006, p. 151
and not produced at any scale locally.101

An exception may be the rhytons, funnel-shaped vessels used for libation ceremonies (Fig. 3).

Mycenean and Cypriot rhytons were found at Ugarit in great number, 17 alone at the so-called

Temple of the Rhytons in the city centre.102 This does not, however, suggest that the temple served a

community of Mycenean expatriates: rather, it appears the temple was dedicated to the Canaanite

god El.103 Indeed, while Cypriots were certainly present at Ugarit and are both regularly mentioned

in Ugaritic and Akkadian administrative and epistolary documents, as well as leaving behind some

Cypro-Minoan writing of their own,104 and we have some evidence of direct trade with Mycenean

100 Cline 2018

101 Yon 2006, p. 145
102 Ibid., p. 151
103 Nicolas Wyatt, ‘The Religion of Ugarit: An Overview’ in Watson and Wyatt 1999, p. 535
104 Vita 1999, pp. 458-459

34
Crete,105 there do not appear to have been significant direct links with the Aegean north of Crete, and

Linear B Greek is notably absent among the otherwise extensive list of written languages used at

Ugarit.

An exception may be represented by a sword of Naue II type found at Ugarit in 1970. The exact

find context is difficult to reconstruct, as it was uncovered when a mechanical excavator broke into a

built tomb during fortification works by the Syrian army, an incident which also led to the excavation

of the ‘House of Urtenu’ and its archive (though they are not part of the same trench). The sword

was found together with an Aegean-style knife and probably was not part of a grave deposit. Both are

noticeably different types from those generally found at Ugarit and in the wider Levant106 Obviously,

artefacts are not people—the sword-and-knife hoard cannot be taken as evidence of even isolated

migration to Ugarit. We can certainly imagine groups of warriors from Italy and the Aegean world

making their way to the Levant and entering the services of its wealthy kings, but this is purely

speculative. Still, the presence of even a single Naue II type sword confirms at least indirect links with

the Central Mediterranean.

3.5. Destruction and reconstruction in Ugarit and surroundings

Thus far, we have largely restricted our discussion to the written records of Ugarit, showing the

extended weakening of the city’s power and security. The wealth and breadth of that record should

have become apparent by now. Yet for Ugarit’s final days, and their aftermath, archaeology must

105 Heltzer 1999, pp. 443-444

106 Reinhard Jung and Mathias Mehofer, ‘A Sword of Naue II Type from Ugarit and the Historical Significance of Italian-

type Weaponry in the Eastern Mediterranean’ in Aegean Archaeology 8 (2008), pp. 111-135
35
underpin our interpretation. What we see at the site of Ras Shamra itself is the aftermath of

destruction: the city was abandoned, pillaged and set ablaze.

We cannot with certainty describe the events that led to Ugarit’s fall. What seems clear is there

appears to have been some fighting in the city’s streets—arrowheads were found dispersed

throughout the city, and especially in the city centre, though at a number and density that suggests

isolated skirmishes rather than bitter street battles.107 There is no evidence of a massacre anywhere in

the city, but we would expect little if any skeletal evidence to survive in the first place. 108 It appears

that the people of the city abandoned it in great haste—in many buildings, furniture and domestic

equipment were found overturned. In one building near the royal palace, tentatively identified as a

‘tavern’ by Yon, a large stone trough was found still filled with tableware (see Fig. 4) as if someone had

placed dirty dishes in the sink before abandoning it.109

After, the city appears to have

been pillaged at some length. Very

few metal objects were found in-situ,

even in the wealthiest houses. The

exception are hoards of valuables

found buried at various places

around the tell, such as a hoard of 74

Figure 4. Stone trough with tableware from the ‘House with Sink’. From Yon bronze objects carefully stacked
2006, p. 57

107 Marguerite Yon, ‘The End of the Kingdom of Ugarit’ in William A. Ward and Martha Sharp Joukowsky (eds.), The
Crisis Years: The 12th Century B.C. From Beyond the Danube to the Tigris (Dubuque, 1992), p. 117
108 Olivier Callot, La tranchée “Ville Sud”. Études d’architecture domestique. Ras Shamra-Ougarit X (Paris, 1994), pp. 212-

213
109 Yon 2006, p. 58

36
under the threshold to the ‘House of the High Priest’, the latest of which date to the turn of the 12 th

century.110 Clearly, residents hoped in vain to return to recover their valuables once the coast had

cleared.

Finally, the city was burned. In some places, the destruction layer of collapsed walls, burned

plaster, and heaps of ashes measures two metres in thickness. A thick layer of yellowish powder

remains of burnt brick walls.111 Yet it is notable that almost all of the reported traces of the

conflagration stem from the royal palace and the wealthiest houses. Callot suggests that this is because

the more modest homes, which in any case often adjoined the more stately ones, contained less

flammable material that would survive to the present day,112 but we might also take it as a sign of quite

literal class warfare at the end of Ugarit’s life, a model proposed for the contemporary fall of the

Hittite empire113—a revolt of the disaffected and struggling urban lower classes against a palatial elite

that could not provide for them, occasioned by an opportune attack by foreign raiders, rebel

mercenaries and attacking ḫabiru.

Ras Shamra is not the only site to have suffered destruction by fire around this time. The Ugaritic

sites of Ras Ibn Hani, discovered 1977, and Tell Tweini (ancient Gibala?), excavated 1999-2010,

likewise show traces of a conflagration. At Tell Tweini in particular we find a thick ash layer separating

Late Bronze Age and Iron Age layers, in which arrowheads as well as both imported Late Helladic

IIIB and locally produced early Late Helladic IIIC ceramic were found.114 Ras Ibn Hani, the port of

110 Singer 1999, p. 731

111 Ibid., p. 730
112 Callot 1994, p. 213
113 Neil Asher Silberman, ‘Of Bronze Age Crisis and Collapse’ in Archaeology 43 (1990), pp. 64-69
114 David Kaniewski et al., ‘The Sea Peoples, from Cuneiform Tablets to Carbon Dating’ in PLoS ONE 6 (2011), pp. 1-7

37
Ugarit, was likewise ruined, but the absence of any valuables suggests an orderly evacuation, possibly

to the capital further inland.115

Both Ras Ibn Hani and Tell Tweini were quickly reoccupied. Locally produced Late Helladic

IIIC ware begins appearing in the post-destruction layers, but at the same time local ceramic forms

with antecedants in the Late Bronze Age Levant continue to be made.116 Indeed, the toponymy of the

Ugaritic kingdom shows remarkable continuity, with many place names recorded in cuneiform

tablets still current today.117 While foreign invaders may have settled at the site, so did returning locals.

Ras Shamra, meanwhile, shows no signs of large-scale reoccupation. Some minor traces indicate

squatters in the ruins—such as the aforementioned dome-shaped ovens, including the so-called

‘tablet oven’, or stone troughs and new walls moved into new positions without concern for previous

architectural units. But for the most part, the site of Ras Shamra remained abandoned until the

Persian and Hellenistic period.118 It seems clear that the once-prosperous tell no longer held much

promise as a site of settlement for the survivors: with the demise of the palatial economy as the driving

motor behind urbanisation, those Ugarites who evacuated the city prior to its pillaging appear to have

slunk back to smaller towns and villages.

3.6. Excursus: Dating the fall of Ugarit

We have thus far avoided absolute dating. In part, that is because of the nature of our sources.

Few of the letters which we discussed in the above sections bear the names of their correspondents;

115 Anne Caubet, ‘Reoccupation of the Syrian Coast After the Destruction of the “Crisis Years”’ in Ward and Joukowsky
1992, pp. 124-125
116 Ibid., pp. 125-127
117 Pierre Bordreuil, ‘À propos de la topographie économique de l’Ougarit: jardins du Midi et pâturages du Nord’ in Syria

66 (1989), pp. 263-274

118 Singer 1999, pp. 731-732

38
none include regnal years. The chronology of Ugarit remains a matter of some debate, and is based

largely on synchronisms with the other great powers of the Ancient Near East, principally Egypt.

Nevertheless, scholarship has increasingly settled on a range of ca. 1190-1185 BCE for the final

destruction of Ugarit. In part, this is based on a fairly well-fixed terminus ante quem. Though the

Medinet Habu inscriptions of Ramesses III do not explicitly mention Ugarit, it may be presumed to

be one of the countries that could not ‘stand before their [i.e. the Sea Peoples’] arms’. The oldest

relevant inscriptions on the Medinet Habu monument are dated to Ramesses’ III fifth regnal year,

conventionally 1181 BCE.119 The end of written records and radiocarbon dating suggest a slightly

earlier cutoff, though of course the radiocarbon dates should be taken with a heaping of salt.120 Hittite

records suggest a similar date, especially if we assume Ugarit was in contact with its overlords right up

to the end.121

By contrast, several different finds have increasingly lowered the terminus post quem. They are as

follows:

1. A bronze sword with a cartouche of Pharaoh Merneptah. The sword was found in the

so-called ‘House of the Armourer’ or ‘House of the Coppersmith’, thus named for a

cache of bronze weapons buried under it. It was most likely produced at Ugarit, and is

certainly not of Egyptian make.122 Merneptah, we recall, is also the pharaoh approached

by Ammurapi for artisans to erect a sculpture of the pharaoh opposite the image of

Ba’al.123 Conventionally, Merneptah reigned 1213-1203 BCE.124

119 Eric H. Cline, 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed (Princeton, 2014), p. 1
120 Kaniewski et al. 2011
121 Gary Beckman, ‘Hittite Chronology’ in Akkadica 120 (2000), pp. 19-32
122 Yon 2006, p. 71
123 Lackenbacher 2001
124 Watson and Wyatt 1999, pp. 893-894

39
 2. A letter from the Egyptian vizier Beya (egy. B3y) to Ammurapi, RS 86.2230. Only its

opening lines survive, but they suffice to establish the author as the same B3y who

governed Egypt under Pharaoh Siptah.125 B3y fell from grace and was executed in Siptah’s

fifth year, putting the terminus ante quem for his letter to Ugarit to 1189 BCE.126

3. Astronomical observations. RS 12.061 is a controversial ritual text involving observations

of the sun and Mars in an uncertain context. Oswald and Loretz translate as follows:

Im sechsten Abschnitt des Neumondtages des/im Ḫiyyār ist untergegangen die Sonne;
ihr Torhüter ist Rešeph. Zwei Lebern hat man untersucht. Gefahr!127

Based on their reading of the tablet as a hastily-written warning from the priesthood on

the acropolis, they interpret this report as referring to the partial solar eclipse of 21

January 1192 BCE.128 If we accept their reasoning, this would provide not only a valuable

terminus post quem, but also provide evidence of the way in which the contemporary

administration and priesthood of Ugarit reacted to the proverbial writing on the wall.

Oswald and Loretz go further than that, however, by speculating that its unusual find

location—according to Schaeffer’s reports, by the palace gate’s doorstep—indicates it was

lost by a messenger sent to warn the palace of the outcome of an attack already underway,

who dropped it in a general panic. By that reasoning, 21 January 1192 would be the exact

day of Ugarit’s destruction.129 Compelling though this image is, it remains extremely

speculative, but the value of the eclipse for Ugaritic chronology remains.

125 Daniel Arnaud, ‘Textes syllabiques:

lettres’ in Yon and Arnaud 2001, pp. 278-289
126 Pierre Grandet, ‘L’exécution du chancelier Bay. O. IFAO 1864’ in Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie
Orientale 100 (2000), pp. 339-345
127 Manfried Dietrich and Oswald Loretz, ‘Der Untergang von Ugarit am 21. Januar 1192 v. Chr.? Der astronomisch-

hepatoskopische Bericht KTU 1.78 (= RS 12.061)’ in Ugarit-Forschungen 34 (2002), p. 64

128 Ibid., p. 70
129 Ibid., pp. 69-72

40
 Accordingly, we should place the fall of Ugarit between 1192 and 1181 BCE, preferably earlier to

allow for more time between it and the Sea People campaigns of Ramesses III. Kaniewski et al. further

propose to narrow down this range based on their carbon dating of samples from Tell Tweini to

between 1192 and 1190 BCE.130

4. Conclusion: A fragile state?

No event in history, no matter how momentous, happens in isolation. At any given moment,

places, polities and individuals are being worked on by forces that reach far beyond their immediate

field of view. Even such events as lend themselves to easy and precise dating—battles, the deaths of

rulers, and the like—have lengthy prologues: they are parts of historical processes. The fall of Ugarit

is no exception and must be viewed in the context of a long and torturous decline during which Ugarit

and its rulers became increasingly less able to respond effectively to increasingly dire challenges.

In the above essay, we have shown the fundamental weakness of Ugarit at the end of the 12th

century BCE, in particular as regards three interlocking structural problems: Ugarit’s dependence on

an increasingly dissatisfied overlord and the onerous obligations placed upon it, which in turn

exacerbated the effects of a severe drought and famine on the food supply, which in turn led to an

unsustainable increase in wealth inequality and banditry. We may leave as a thought experiment the

question of whether Ugarit might have weathered any of these difficulties on their own, or even all of

them together, without the additional shock of outside attackers raiding its shoreline.

The presence of the Sea Peoples at Ugarit is without question. A number of letters tell us of their

attacks in great clarity and with chilling urgency. But it is also clear that at least some of the Sea Peoples

130 Kaniewski et al. 2011

41
were far from strangers to Ugarit. In light of reports like RS 20.18—“it was the sons of your country

and your own ships that did this”—it seems an inevitable conclusion that Ugaritic ḫabiru, bandits,

nomads, pirates and—perhaps—revolting lower-class townspeople played a starring role in the Sea

People sack of Ugarit.

There will never be a definitive history of Ugarit’s fall. The uncertainties of dating and correlating

tablets, the philological difficulties of interpreting them and the imperfect state of excavations

particularly in the early decades conspire to tactfully drape a gauzy curtain over the city’s final days.

Regardless, we believe to have demonstrated that Ugarit in its final years was a dysfunctional and

fragile state and society, and that its sack by the Sea Peoples was decades in the making. Yet the writings

it produced remain, and continue to offer us an incomparable window into the world of the Late

Bronze Age Levant. We are reminded of the words Alice Goodman puts in the mouth of Chairman

Mao in Nixon in China:

The revolution does not last.

It is duration—the regime
survives in that, and not in time.131

131 Alice Goodman, Nixon in China (Libretto, New York, 1987), Act 1, Scene 2
42
5. Appendix: Table of synchronisms132

132 From Watson and Wyatt 1999, pp. 893-894

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