Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2021 - 31

prickly about asserting their identity and more suspicious
of foreigners in their midst during the city's last decades.
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Turkey, were barred from owning property in the city or, in
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records on foreign residents, and laws restricted the
amount of debt that local people could owe to forĥ
eign creditors. " They wanted foreigners coming and
bringing things, but they also wanted to police how
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the community didn't like the fact that merchants
from another city owned property in the commuĥ
nity when local people were in debt. "
icious
cades.
RGH
y or, in
FDUHIXO
he
A gold-covered bronze statue of a deity was found in Ugarit.
A gold
able to excavate at Ugarit in 2009. " Apparently this was
the case before its destruction, and it might have left the
city somewhat unprotected. "
able
the ca
city so
Y
ETALL DIDNOT GO as hoped for the kings and
merchants of Ugarit, and trouble was already
looming on the horizon before the appearĥ
nd
ady
ar
r
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signed a treaty establishing Ugarit as a Hittite vassal
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as Hittite armies gobbled up weaker states across
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X
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sal
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ss
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allowed
to main
trade
to co
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marry
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as lon
al tr
to th
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" Ug
SDUW
and
UHT
tite
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of
&R
believed to depict the
city's patron deity,
Baal, brandishing
a thunderbolt or
club while driving a
spear or plant into
the ground. The small
figure may represent
the king.
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fo
ac
be
ci
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the
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allowed the city's residents
to maintain their lucrative
trade ties and its rulers
to continue to bring in
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marry their children into
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as long as they sent annuĥ
al tribute and soldiers
to the Hittite capital of
Hattusha. This had fateĥ
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" Ugarit was expected to
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and send troops when
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tites, " says archaeoloĥ
JLVW &DUROLQH 6DXYDJH
of Loyola Marymount
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A limestone stela
found on Ugarit's
acropolis is
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century B.C., the city's population of about 10,000
seems to have increased, possibly due to drought
in the surrounding farmland putting stress on food
supplies and causing people to move to denser
settlements. The Hittite capital in Hattusha was
under assault either from foreign invaders, internal
tumult, or some combination of the two, and soon
Ugarit faced its own attackers. Archaeologists have
IRXQG VSHDUSRLQWVħHYLGHQFH RI KDQGĥWRĥKDQG FRPĥ
se
in
su
s
u
tu
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all ov
been
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st
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of
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ver the city. At some point, the city seems to have
been completely abandoned. Unlike nearly all other
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8JDULW VKRZV QR VLJQ RI ODUJHĥVFDOH UHSRSXODWLRQ IRU DW
least three centuries. " Writing stops, everything stops,
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of George Washington University. " They didn't even
come back to dig up their buried hoards. Maybe they were all
killed. But then, we don't have any mass graves, and there's no
mention of them being enslaved. "
If he escaped the chaos of invasion, Urtenu does not seem
to have ever returned to the ruins of his humble home. On the
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FKDULRW SRPPHO DQ REMHFW WKDW VLJQL¿HG SUHVWLJH DQG UR\DO
favor for its owner. Urtenu never retrieved this treasured
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KLV WDEOHWV RQ QHDW VKHOYHV FROODSVHG RQWR WKH ¿UVW DQG ERWK
remained buried beneath rubble until archaeologists arrived
in 1986. The alphabetic script that scribes had scratched into
clay at Urtenu's house seems to have died with Ugarit, Boyes
says, although its use may have continued elsewhere for a
time on materials that have decayed and are invisible in the
archaeological record. A few centuries later, new alphabetic
scripts, forerunners of our own alphabet, appeared in port
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the Phoenicians, who had been among Ugarit's main trading
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Phoenician writing, says Boyes, but " they're siblings and very
much part of the same regional network of culture and writĥ
ing practices, so I'm sure they operated in an environment of
PXWXDO DZDUHQHVV DQG LQÀXHQFH´ $OSKDEHWLF ZULWLQJ DOVR WRRN
KROG LQ WKH $UDPDLF NLQJGRPV RI QRUWKHUQ 6\ULD DQG ODWHU
WKH ELEOLFDO FLWLHV RI &DQDDQ 2OG 0HVRSRWDPLDQ FXQHLIRUP
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and the ninth centuries to make alphabetic writing catch
on, " says Hawley, " but those intervening centuries are simply
undocumented. Ugarit was a precursor and announced what
was going to happen. " Q
Roger Atwood is a contributing editor at Archaeology.
31
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Archaeology Magazine - July/August 2021

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