For strangers, wandering the streets of ancient Ugarit would have been a bewildering experience for the ancient city’s layout followed no particular plan. Instead, it consisted of an irregular maze of streets and allies surrounding isolated insulae that accommodated the city’s houses.

Ugarit’s houses were sophisticated and well designed with facilities that would have been the envy of other ancient cities. Their design made the most of the limited space, with shared partition walls, and multiple stories. However, while most ancient civilizations kept the living and the dead separate, the houses of Ugarit were designed to accommodate both.

 

Houses in Ugarit.

 So far, archaeologists have identified residential areas in Ugarit in the north and east of the city. The north accommodated the high-status residential properties while the east was the commercial district, where artisans such as weavers and potters lived and worked.

The houses in these areas reflected their differing social situations. However, they also shared several features. All were constructed of wood and stone and had a water supply of some sort. The remains of staircases also indicate that houses in Ugarit also had at least two stories above ground- each with a particular function.

 

 The Ground Floor

 

Entry to houses was through a tiled stone corridor. In higher status homes this would open onto a hall or vestibule. Otherwise, the primary function of the ground floor was utilitarian. All the ground floor rooms, which included the kitchen and bathroom, were arranged around an open courtyard, which often had its own bread oven.

This ground floor area was the public zone of the house, whatever the status of its residents. Here, the occupants would carry out their trade if they had one as well as the day-to-day activities.  The more private rooms were located above.

 

The Upper Floors

 

House in Ugarit would have had flat-topped roofs made of mud covered reeds. Quite often, this roof space served as an additional outdoor zone, for work, and for pleasure. However, below the roof were the family rooms: the bedrooms and the places in which they relaxed and entertained. In the houses of the wealthy, the first floor would also have accommodated the library. It was quite common for the well to do to keep records of their business transactions in their homes, as well as general reference materials.

The house of Ortonou was the home of a wealthy merchant. Recently discovered and excavated, his library included tablets relating to his business ventures and established his close links with the royal family of Ugarit. Likewise,  the House of Rap’anou, a prominent man, and writer during the reign of Amistamar II in around 1274-1240 BC, contained a vast library, containing encyclopedias containing the names of animals, Ugarit’s deities and dictionaries of the language.

 

The Mausoleums

 The foundations of Ugarit’s houses were dug deep -up to 1.8m in some cases. These solid foundations stabilized the dwellings during earthquakes. However, residents often put them to practical use as well. However, instead of using them as cellars or for storage, the people of Ugarit’s used these underground vaults as the family mausoleum.

To date, archaeologists have identified over 200 crypts in Ugarit- each one under a house. It seems that from the mid to late Bronze Age at least, it was entirely usual for the living and the dead of Ugarit to live in close proximity.

Entrance to the crypt was via a descending stairway in the garden area of the house. From here, a sloping corridor leads into the tomb. Each tomb was generally rectangular, built to arch upwards into a dome that was capped at the summit with a T shaped stone. Wall apertures held grave goods. These have been found to include ceramics, glass, vases, gold and silver jewelry, bronze wares and weapons. The selection found are by no means a complete representation of what the dead would have been buried with, as it is clear many tombs have been robbed.

 

The Importance of Ancestors

 

So why did the people of Ugarit keep the dead so close? Possible reasons are suggested in some of Ugarit’s many religious records. A cuneiform tablet referring to the funeral of one of Ugarit’s Kings, Niqmad, dating from the between 1225-1220 BC includes a song which indicates the importance of deceased family members.

In the song, each of the predecessors of the dead King is invited to attend his funeral. The song names them as ‘demigods’, indicating the Ugaritic belief in the survival after death of the deceased-and their continued importance in the lives of the living.

So to the people of Ugarit, their ancestors were not dead and gone; they had merely evolved into a higher state of being. These ‘divine’ ancestors still had a role to play in the family. So it was only natural to keep their earthly remains close at hand.

 

Sources

Ugarit: History and Archaeology by Jamal Hassan Haydar

Monuments of Syria: A Historical Guide by Ross Burns. I. B Tauris Publishers. London: New York.1999

Gates, Charles 2003, Ancient cities: The archaeology of Urban life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. Routledge.

Nick Wyatt religious texts from Ugarit