Ugarit

Ugarit was an ancient Levantine coastal city located in what is today northern Syria. The site, with its corpus of ancient cuneiform texts, was discovered in 1928. The texts were written in a previously unknown Northwest Semitic tongue—the Ugaritic language. Archaeological excavations of Ugarit show evidence of occupation since the 8th millennium BC. Research has focused on the late Bronze Age levels; relatively little is known about earlier occupation. The ongoing archaeological investigation of Ugarit has proven to be invaluable to the study of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean.
Ugarit is north of the Syrian city Latakia; at its zenith it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. The ruins are often called "Ras Shamra" or "Tell Shamra" after the local place names.

History

Ugarit has its origins in the Neolithic period of the Fertile Crescent. The site was occupied from the end of the 8th millennium BC and continued as a settlement through the Near Eastern Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages until its destruction in c. 1185 BC. It was during the Late Bronze Age that Ugarit saw significant growth, culminating in the establishment of the Kingdom of Ugarit.
The city had close ties to the Hittite Empire, in later periods as a vassal state. It sent tribute to Egypt at times, and maintained trade and diplomatic relations with Cyprus, as documented in archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean and Cypriot pottery found there. The polity was at its height from until c. 1185 BC; when it was destroyed, possibly through a combination of invading Sea Peoples and internal struggles. The Kingdom of Ugarit would be one of the many polities that fell in the Late Bronze Age collapse of 12th century BC. Gibala, a coastal city at the southern edge of the Kingdom of Ugarit, was also destroyed at this time.

Neolithic, Chalcolithic Age

Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Stratum 16
Pre-Pottery Neolithic, Stratum 15
Halafian Chalcolithic, Stratum 14
Halafian Chalcolithic, Stratum 13
Chalcolithic Ugarit Stratum 12
Early Bronze Age
EB I-II - Ugarit Stratum 11
EB III - Ugarit Stratum 10
EB IV - Ugarit Stratum 9
Middle Bronze Age

The Middle Bronze Age emerged after a major drought event that ended around 2020 BC. In Mesopotamia, the Fall of Ur III led to the Isin-Larsa period.

Middle Bronze I

Ugarit provides material from MB I.

Middle Bronze IIA

Around 1820 BC, the Great Kingdom of Yamhad emerged under its King Sumu-Epuh as a regional power. Ugarit would eventually become a vassal of Yamhad along with several other petty kingdoms in the Northern Levant.
The Mari Archive mentions Ugarit. Mari was a kingdom located on the Middle Euphrates to the east of the Yamhad Empire. The archive contained cuneiform tablets written in Akkadian. Trade would have gone from Ugarit, Aleppo, Emar, Mari down to Babylon. Zimri-Lim of Mari also made a state visit to Ugarit.
Ugarit had contacts with the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. One artifact is a carnelian bead inscribed with the name of Senusret I. A stela and a statuette from the Egyptian pharaohs Senusret III and Amenemhet III have also been recovered; it is unclear at what time these objects were brought to Ugarit.

Middle Bronze IIB

In MB IIB, the Hattusili I of Hatti attacked Yamhad around 1620 with Mursili I of Hatti making new raids around 1600/1590 BC, causing the Great Kingdom of Yamhad to collapse. Ugarit was relatively shielded lying on the coast behind a mountain range. Large parts of Inner Syria was devestated by the Hittite onslaught ending MB IIB. In the Northern Levant there is no MB IIC as in the Southern Levant, but the material culture changes to LB IA.

Late Bronze Age

The city reached its golden age between 1500 BC and 1200 BC when it ruled a mercantile coastal kingdom, trading with Egypt, Cyprus, Aegean states, polities in Syria, the Hittites, cities of the Levantine core, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. Five of the Egyptian Amarna letters from the mid-14th century BCE were written in Ugarit. The population of Ugarit in this period is estimated to be between 7,000 and 8,000 individuals. The kingdom of Ugarit controlled about 2,000 km² on average.
In the mid-14th century BC, Ugarit was ruled by king Ammittamru I. A letter sent by him, probably to pharaoh Amenhotep III, expresses cordial diplomatic relations between the two. During the reign of his son Niqmaddu II Ugarit became a vassal of the Hittite Empire, first under a viceroy in Karkemiš and then, with the Hititte collapse, directly under Karkemiš. Diplomatic relations with Egypt continued, as evidenced by two letters sent by Niqmaddu II and his wife Ḫeba, probably sent to Akhenaten. The former includes a request from the Egyptian king to send a physician to Ugarit.

Destruction

From the late 13th century into the early 12th century BC the eastern Mediterranean faced severe and widespread food shortages, possibly from crop failures due to climate change or plant disease. The kings of Ugarit—a major supplier and transporter of foodstuffs—received a number of desperate pleas for food from neighboring states. Eventually Ugarit itself faced shortage and hunger. A letter from Egyptian pharaoh Merenptah referred to a message sent by the ruler of Ugarit:
The last king of Ugarit, Ammurapi, was a contemporary of the last known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II. A letter by Ammurapi stresses the seriousness of the crisis faced by many Near Eastern states due to attacks from outsiders. Ugarit's army and navy joined with Hittite forces to stem the oncoming enemy; the allies eventually had to fall back from Anatolia to the Syrian frontier. Ammurapi's response to the king of Alashiya's appeal for assistance from highlights the desperate situation in Ugarit and across the eastern Mediterranean:
Eshuwara, the senior governor of Alashiya, responded:
In the end Ammurapi begged for forces from the Hittite viceroy at Karkemiš. The invaders had captured the kingdom's other port, Ra’šu, and were advancing on the city of Ugarit.
The viceroy sent troops to assist Ugarit, but Ugarit had already been sacked when the Hittite forces reached the city. A letter written to the viceroy after the destruction said:

Rulers

Early in the excavations a partial text of the Ugarit King List, in Ugaritic, was found. Later, complete renditions in Akkadian were discovered. They list twenty six rulers, all deified. Only the later rulers are supported by texts or known synchronisms. Given that Ugarit was abandoned between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages it is thought that the earliest names on the list were more on the order of tribal chiefs than kings.

Ruler	Reigned	Comments
Niqmaddu I		Known only from a damaged seal that mentions "Yaqarum, son of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit".
Yaqarum		Known only from a damaged seal that mentions "Yaqarum, son of Niqmaddu, king of Ugarit".
Ammittamru I	c. 1350 BC
Niqmaddu II	c. 1350–1315 BC	Contemporary of Hittite ruler Suppiluliuma I
Arhalba	c. 1315–1313 BC	Contemporary of Hittite ruler Mursili II
Niqmepa	c. 1313–1260 BC	Treaty with Mursili II; Son of Niqmadu II; Queen was Ahatmilku
Ammittamru II	c. 1260–1235 BC	Contemporary of Amurru ruler Bentisina; Son of Niqmepa
Ibiranu	c. 1235–1225 BC	Addressee of the letter of Piha-walwi
Niqmaddu III	c. 1225–1215 BC
Ammurapi	c. 1200 BC	Contemporary of Chancellor Bay of Egypt. Ugarit is destroyed in his reign.

Archaeology

Archaeological soundings of Ugarit indicate that it was first occupied in the Neolithic period, no later than the eighth millennium BC. Only the highest—i.e., the newest—levels of the city's ruins have been excavated. The recovered evidence gives a picture of Ugaritic civilization just before its destruction in the Late Bronze Age collapse of the late 12th century BC. This evidence includes many caches of cuneiform tablets found inside libraries.
While the chronology of the ancient Near East and that of ancient Egypt are not perfectly synchronized, the trove of Ugaritic texts and artifacts has proven invaluable for precise chronological dating.
For example, a recovered tablet shows that Chancellor Bay, an official of the Egyptian queen Twosret, was in communication with Ammurapi, the last ruler of Ugarit. It was already established that Bay was in office from approximately 1194 to 1190 BC. The two pieces of evidence together thus set an upper limit on the year of Ugarit's destruction: 1194 BC.
By the same method, the Ugarit trove allowed archaeologists to establish dates across the eastern Mediterranean with greater precision. For example:

The destruction levels of the ruins—i.e., the archaeological strata comprising Ugarit when it was destroyed—contain Late Helladic IIIB pottery but no pottery of the succeeding LH IIIC phase. To fix an end date of Ugarit would thus prove crucial to establishing the chronology of the LH IIIC phase in mainland Greece.
An Egyptian sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah was recovered from the destruction levels. A recovered cuneiform tablet showed that Ugarit was destroyed sometime after Merneptah's death in 1203 BC.
An early consensus held that Ugarit was destroyed by no later than the eighth year of the reign of pharaoh Ramesses III, 1178 BC.
Radiocarbon dating combined with translations of cuneiform records and the absolute dating of recorded astronomical events, e.g., an eclipse in 1192 BC, indicate destruction between 1192 and 1190 BC.
The beginning of the LH IIIC in mainland Greece could thus be dated to 1190 BC.

A large number of arrowheads were recovered from the destruction level in 2021. Their typology has not been published as yet.