Ras Shamra Ugarit Research Articles

An Onomastic and Prosopographic Forest: ʿAbdīmilku in Texts from Ras Shamra–Ugarit and Ras Ibn Hani

An Onomastic and Prosopographic Forest: <i>ʿAbdīmilku</i> in Texts from Ras Shamra–Ugarit and Ras Ibn Hani

Preliminary observation on three Late Bronze Age gold items from Ras Shamra-Ugarit (Syria)

Studies of technical mechanisms of ancient gold work from the Near Eastern Bronze Age still remain rare. The identification of marks and reconstruction of manufacturing techniques and processes must involve a multidisciplinary approach, where visual inspection, photomicrographs, experimentation, and elementary analyses are considered. Within the framework of my PhD research on the decoration of ancient gold in the Levant, I conducted a preliminary study of three items, decorated with filigreed and granulated designs, which were discovered at Ras Shamra-Ugarit (Syria) and were dated to the Late Bronze Age. In the present paper, I describe the results of my first observations of the technical characteristics of the filigree and granulation, as well as of the joining processes that were employed by the craftsmen of that famous Levantine kingdom at the end of the second millennium BC. Finally, I also discuss the issues that should be considered in future research.

Mycenaean centaurs at Ugarit

AbstractThe identification of two Mycenaean terracotta centaurs from the excavations at Ras Shamra-Ugarit suggests a Bronze Age origin for the centaurs known from the historic periods of Greece. The Mycenaean centaurs from Ras Shamra-Ugarit are compared to the later examples from the Greek mainland. No continuous artistic tradition can be identified among the preserved examples. Since writing ceased to be used in Greece in the Iron Age and no artistic trend connecting the different representations of centaurs can be seen, it is suggested here that the concept of centaurs was transmitted by way of the oral tradition.

Babylonian Music Again

In Iraq 30 (1968) I published a fragmentary text from Ur, then numbered 7/80, containing part of a treatise on the tuning of the sammû instrument, and with the collaboration of the musicologist David Wulstan, who himself contributed a companion article, I added an interpretation, with a table showing that the text described seven different tunings, with instructions in two chapters for the conversion of each one to the next, first by lowering, then by raising the pitch of one string by a semitone. The copy of the text was subsequently published again as UET VII 74 and the number 7/80 was abandoned when the tablet was sent to Baghdad and renumbered in the Iraq Museum. This text, usually known as “the tuning text” — a better name would be “retuning text” — provided the decisive clue to the understanding of the Babylonian musical system and its terminology, which have since been expounded by several musicologists and compared with the Greek system of “octave species”. So well established did the theory become that it was applied without question by several scholars when a few years later a tablet apparently containing a musical notation using the same terminology was recognized among the tablets from Ras Shamra-Ugarit. Little notice was taken in 1982 when Raoul Vitale wrote an article calling in question the basic assumption of the theory that the tuning system and the scales were upward rather than downward. Only recently has M. L. West proposed in this article “The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Human Melodic Texts” (Music and Letters 75/4 [1993], 161–79) that Vitale's theory should be seriously considered.

&lt;i&gt;kbd&lt;/i&gt; comme nom divin en éblaïte, ougaritique et hébreu

In Ras Shamra-Ugarit, in second part of second millennium B.C., divine nome kbd the Glorious One is attested in theophorous personal names. Also in Tell Mardikh-Ebla, already in third millennium B.C., once again this divine name can be identified. Finally, this same divine name is present in biblical Hebrew, where we limit ourselves to PN todi'x and psalm passages which contain divine name tod. Thus kbd as a divine name demonstrates linguistic and religio-cultural continuity from Elba through Ugarit to Hebrew bible. ; Jean Duplacy, A New Critical Edition of Greek New Testament ; This note is a critical presentation of 26th edition of Nestle-Aland, ; Novum Stuttgart ; Tes ; (edited by Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland et alii ; 1979).

Ugarit

This magnificently produced volume is in itself a tribute to the devoted and rewarding work which Claude Schaeffer, aided by many skilful collaborators, began at Ras Shamra-Ugarit 36 years ago. The frontispiece illustrates a 5000-pound Syrian banknote, engraved with designs of Ugaritic ivories, a mark of honour in addition to that which was bestowed when the author was made a ‘Freeman’ of the city of Latakia. His many friends and admirers in this country will rejoice that he is held in esteem and affection in the East no less than in the West.The account here presented describes the discoveries made in the 18th and 19th campaigns of 1954-5, and includes a full-scale map of the ‘Grand Palais’ and the ‘Petit Palais’ which, besides being buildings of great architectural interest, have yielded historical and archaeological treasures in abundance. Associated with the former building we have the remains of a royal garden, a parterre which, with its surrounding paths, is an ancient forerunner of Louis XIV's achievement at Versailles, but 31 centuries older, and in another court we find an ornamental pond bordered with a low stone parapet. Not far away was a furnace for the baking of cuneiform texts; some of them had never been removed from the ashes.

The Hyksos Rule in Egypt

IN the nineteenth century B.C. Egypt was the strongest state in the Near East. To the south, Lower Nubia was occupied by Egyptian forces, and still farther to the south trade flourished in the Egyptian factory at Kerma in the Sudan. From these southern provinces gold and other valuable goods came to Egypt in huge quantities. This political and commercial strength permitted Egypt to play a dominant role also in the north, and at least the kinglets of Byblos in Syria seem to have been Pharaoh's vassals. They used regalia of an Egyptian design and were possibly anointed at their coronation with oil from vessels bearing the name of the Egyptian king.2 It is probable that other Syrian cities, too, such as Ras Shamra-Ugarit, were politically dependent on Egypt.3 After the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1778 B.C.4) there followed a short periodlet us say about a generation-when the unity of Egypt was no longer upheld, but a number of ephemeral kinglets ruled the country contemporaneously.5 However, Egypt soon recovered its political unity and strength, and this passing weakness had not changed Egypt's political position in the Near East.6

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Get access The Cuneiform Texts of Ras Shamra-Ugarit, by C. F. A. SCHAEFFER (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1936). Pp. xvi + 100 with 39 plates. (Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1939.) The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume os-XLI, Issue 161, January 1940, Pages 60–65, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/os-XLI.161.60 Published: 01 January 1940