The archaeology of the ancient city of Ugarit in Syria gives us a remarkable insight into the religious beliefs of the ancient Levant. Remains of the city’s temples along with fragments of cuneiform tablets help rebuild a picture of the gods of ancient Ugarit, their roles in society and their myths.

So who were the gods of ancient Ugarit? And what can we learn about the religious preoccupations of their worshippers?

 

The Evidence of Clay Tablets

 

From the evidence of clay tablets that record the mythology of Ugarit’s ancient gods, it seems that the city’s deities were not unique to them. In fact, most of Ugarit’s deities were well-known across Mesopotamia and the Levant in general.

The people of Ugarit favored some gods over others. They included Sahar, the god of the dawn; Salem, god of dusk; and Nehr, the god of day. Then there were the gods, Cothar, a patron of arts and crafts; and Yem, the sea deity. Both of these gods were no doubt courted to favour Ugarit’s manufacturing and sea trade.

But specific gods stand out as of particular significance to Ugarit. They were El, Ashtart, Baal and Dagon.

 

 

El and Baal: The Chief Gods of Ugarit

 

El was a Semitic deity known across Mesopotamia and the Near East. References to him appear over 500 times in the Ugaritic texts, and he was the father of the gods of the Ugaritic pantheon. His symbol was a bull, which represented his strength.

El was the duel creator god, along with his consort, the goddess Athirat or Ashtart. An Assyrian goddess of wealth and vegetation, she was the mother goddess figure of Ugarit.

Another well-represented god in the texts was Baal — a name derived from the Semitic for ‘Lord’ — a Canaanite god mentioned an equal number of times to El. The Baal cycle, a series of six tablets found in his temple in Ugarit tell his story, depicting him as a hero-god rising to destroy chaos. The sequence identifies Baal as either the son of El or Dagon.

The only temples identified and investigated in Ugarit are those dedicated to Baal and Dagon. Clay tablets and stelai, stone markers or monuments, at the temple sites identify them, showing the names of the gods; located on the city’s acropolis, the temples date to the middle Bronze Age.

 

The Temple of Baal

El might have been the supreme deity of the pantheon, but it was Baal who was the principal god of ancient Ugarit. Baal was a god of weather and fertility, which made him a god vital to agriculture and so of primary importance to the people of Ugarit.

Archaeologists identified Ugarit’s temple of Baal from a stele showing Baal striding forward wielding a thunderbolt/club. The people of Ugarit built their temple to Baal on the northwest side of the Acropolis of Ugarit. The temple’s design was simple. It was built on a 22m x 16m platform oriented north-north east-south south-west.

The southern part of the temple consisted of an open courtyard with a central altar. North of this was the temple vestibule and cella, whose thick walls concealed an inner staircase that led to the summit of a tower-like structure.

This tower formed an artificial high place, a place which some believed allowed clear views of Mount Sapanu/Zaphon to the north of the city. The mount was believed to be the dwelling place of Baal dwelled. However, it is also feasible that the tower acted as a landmark for sailors, a theory supported by offerings of 16 stone anchors found inside the building.

The Temple of Dagon

Baal’s other potential father, Dagon, was also a Syrian/Mesopotamian god of fertility His name possibly means ‘rain’ or ‘corn.’ In Ugarit, he was particularly important as the protector and giver of wealth and grain. The Ugarit regarded him as second in rank to El in the Pantheon of the Gods, even though he did not feature prominently in the city’s mythology.

The temple of Dagon was slightly larger than the temple of Baal, measuring At 17m x 28m with walls between 4-5 m thick walls. However, only its foundations remain. It has only been possible to identify it because of statues of Dagon found on the premises.

 

From Agriculture to Trade

At a base level, the Ugaritic religion concerned itself with regulating the natural world around them. The most crucial element of this was ensuring a good harvest and controlling the weather.

The religious texts continuously refer to the vital importance of divine intervention in agriculture to prevent ‘heat cracked fields’ and ‘wilted plants.’  This explains why the Ugarit gave the temple of Dagon, as God of the grain, a prominent place on the Acropolis.

The importance of Baal lies in his role as ‘Lord of the earth’ as the cuneiform tablets describe him, but also his vital role in ensuring adequate rainfall to rainfall. The texts mourn the occasions when Baal forsakes ‘the furrows of the ploughland.’ The health of the god also affected the land. When Baal fell into a fever, the tablets record how ‘The earth dried up entirely. The watercourses of the steppe became parch[ed].’

Through Baal, the people of Ugarit sought to control the weather. This practice may have begun because of agriculture, but it took on another dimension as the city prospered and trade flourished. Now, the people started to call upon the gods for aid in matters of trade and crafts. Baal’s depiction in his temple bearing a thunderbolt also indicates that as well as encouraging rain, the people of Ugarit wanted to avert storms that could disrupt sailing — an explanation why the god was so important to sailors.

 

Sources

 Hayder, Jamal Hassan. Ugarit: History and Archaeology.

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

Bienkowski, Piotr, and Millard, A (2000). The Dictionary of the Ancient Near East. British Museum Press.