RAS SH AMR A— HARRIS 483 



cultural type means the coming of a new people, for cultural forms 

 often spread far beyond the borders of the peoples who developed 

 them. 



Early in the second millennium Ugarit developed into an important 

 trade city, now certainly Phoenician. It was important to Egypt 

 during the twelfth dynasty, and was perhaps under its domination. 

 The end of this period is the time of King Niqmed, in whose day the 

 long mythological poems may have been written. Some time during 

 this period, perhaps in the uncertain times between the Middle and 

 New Kingdoms in Egypt, the fortifications of Ugarit were dismantled. 



With the New Kingdom of Egypt, Ugarit continued in its impor- 

 tance, probably, like the other cities, an Egyptian protectorate. Dur- 

 ing the troubled times of the Amarna correspondence, Ugarit was 

 sacked, apparently by a Hittite army around 1365 B. C. 



After this destruction, with the weakening of Egyptian control and 

 commercial contacts, Mycenaeans seem to have come to Ugarit in 

 large numbers. Around the port of Ugarit an international settlement 

 of sailors and traders had grown up during the preceding period; it 

 was now large, and perhaps chiefly Cyprian in population, though we 

 need not infer that Ugarit was conquered by Mycenaeans. The city 

 was independent of Egypt; in the great battle of Qadesh, Ugaritic 

 troops were among the enemies of Ramses II. 



When the Peoples of the Sea spread over the eastern Mediterranean, 

 they seem to have either destroyed the city, or settled in it until it 

 was destroyed, perhaps (though improbably) by Tiglath-Pileser I of 

 Assyria on his Syrian campaign. 



At all events, Ugarit was destroyed at about the end of the twelfth 

 century. The site was inhabited from the eighth century, for a time 

 perhaps by a non-Semitic (Greek?) population using sarcophagus 

 burial, bronze jewelry and instruments, iron weapons — Ugarit is now 

 in the iron age. Later periods yield Neo-Babylonian and Egyptian 

 objects of the sixth and fifth centuries. The city maintained itself 

 into Hellenistic times, for we find Greek coins of the fourth century 

 B. C, but under the Hellenistic Seleucid Idngs of Syria its place was 

 gradually taken by Latakia, a seaport a few miles to the south. 

 Since then the site itself has remained uninhabited. 



UGARIT IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 



In ancient times Ugarit was one of a chain of seaports along the 

 eastern coast of the Mediterranean, marked to this day by tells of 

 covered ruins. These and the inland towns of Syria-Palestine were 

 all separate units. There did not exist here the same local needs for 

 united action which had caused the growth of centralized governments 

 in Egypt and Mesopotamia. But language, culture, and population 



