Observations on the Language Situation in Late Bronze Age Ugarit

Abstract

Ugarit is both the name of a kingdom in northwestern Syria and the name of its capital, which thrived during the 14th and 13th centuries BCE. The capital was destroyed in 1185 BCE, and, until the city's excavation, was only known by its modern Arabic name of Tell Ras Shamra. Claude F.A. Schaeffer began conducting excavations on Tell Ras Shamra on 9 May 1929. Only five days later, on 14 May 1929, the first clay tablets with a hitherto unknown cuneiform script were found on the northern part of the acropolis. 2 In spite of various difficulties, the decipherment of this new script was achieved by Hans Bauer (Halle an der Saale), Marcel Cohen (Paris), Paul-Édouard Dhorme (Jerusalem), and Charles Virolleaud (Paris) between 1929 and 1930. 3 At present, ca. 4 000 clay tablets have been unearthed on Tell Ras Shamra. These clay tablets belonged to several archives and libraries from the city of Ugarit and from the palace of Ras Ibn Hani. 4 1 My thanks go to Prof. Louis Jonker (Stellenbosch) for the invitation to the congress on multilingualism. The research for this chapter was carried out at Stellenbosch University in April 2019, where I am indebted to my host, Prof. Izak Cornelius, and at the Collège de France in May 2019, where I am indebted to my host, Prof. Thomas Römer. I also thank Magdalena Bekavac (Tübingen) and Susanne Maier (Tübingen) for supporting me in writing this chapter, and Alexander Johannes Edmonds (Tübingen) for improving the English.