486 ANNUM. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



stitute a dilTerent dialect. When the alphabetic texts are interpreted, 

 Ras Shamra will have become one of the chief sources for our knowledge 

 of this great but little-known people. 



COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 



The importance of Ugarit derived from its geographical position. 

 It was apparently at the head of one of the chief trade routes inland 

 from the Mediterranean: The route to Aleppo and on to the Euphrates 

 Valley and Mesopotamia. Goods from the north Phoenician cities 

 probably went east by way of Ugarit. In addition Ugarit had a lively 

 trade with Egypt which it supphed ynth the highly valued boxwood. 

 Its chief trade was undoubtedly in bronze. Salamis in Cyprus and 

 Ugarit on the Syrian coast were the stations in the passage of bronze 

 from Cyprus, great source of copper in the ancient Near East, to 

 Syria and Mesopotamia. With the bronze, other objects passed in 

 trade, and when Mycenaean pottery is found in Qatna in Syria, or 

 when a vase of Salamis type is found in Ashur, we may presume that 

 they passed through the stalls and storerooms of Ugarit. Later, after 

 the period of the Peoples of the Sea, when iron began to replace bronze 

 as the most necessary of metals, the extent of the bronze trade fell 

 decisively, and Ugarit never regained the importance it had had before 

 the twelfth century. 



Like the other cities, Ugarit had its local industries, partly to satisfy 

 its needs at home, and partly in conjunction ^vith its commerce. There 

 are traces of a pottery industry, and of a purple industry for the dyeing 

 of cloths used at home and in trade. There was also a bronze industry, 

 and the unused deposits of copper ore and slag which have been re- 

 covered by the excavators were shown by analysis to have come from 

 Enkomi. 



LIFE IN UGARIT 



In spite of the many objects found in the excavations, we still know 

 httle of how people hved in the various periods. The large majority of 

 texts are of mythological or cult content; there are a few letters of more 

 or less personal nature (e. g., the Aklcadian letter about the escape of 

 King Niqmed's equerry), and perhaps one of political content; there 

 are also some lists of names. 



Even so, we can record that during the late Bronze Age (stratum I), 

 at the apex of the copper trade, Ugarit was a rich city. The houses are 

 large and spaced well apart; the more important ones had vaulted 

 tombs attached. The weapons, jew^elry, and various objects in gold 

 and silver, bronze, and pottery, are numerous and well-made. 



Little is known of the methods of trading, but we do know that they 

 used a talent of 3,000 shekels, as against the usual one of 3,C00; the 

 same short talent is employed in Exodus 38: 25-7. A text of vet- 



