Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Ugarit, an ancient village located in the region of Canaan on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, north of Beirut, in what is now Syria, plays a tremendously important role in the in understanding of the Old Testament. The excavation of the site began in 1928 at a site known as Minet el-Beida, “The White Harbor,” by a local group known as the Alaouite tribe. The excavation was then continued by the Academie des Iscriptions et Beles-Lettres in Paris, overseen by head curator Claude Schaeffer. Ugarit is blessed with a very long history, which started around 6000 BCE, during the Neolithic period. However, the oldest written history of the city was found in nearby Ebla written around 1800 BCE, which noted a population for Ugarit of approximately 7635. During this time Ugarit was under an Egyptian hegemony and remained under their control through 1400 BCE. The height of the Ugarit political, economic and religious centers was in the 12th century. Ugarit is best known for being the religious center of Canaan during