Ugarit Bronze Age City
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Ugarit Bronze Age City

Visit Ugarit, the extraordinary Bronze Age city near Latakia where one of the world first alphabets was developed, the ancient port city whose cuneiform tablets revolutionized our understanding of ancient Near Eastern civilization.

  1. 1

    Ugarit Excavations

    Enter the Ugarit archaeological site where the excavations since 1929 have revealed the streets, palaces, and temples of a Bronze Age city that flourished 3,500 years ago as one of the most cosmopolitan trading ports of the ancient Mediterranean.

  2. 2

    Royal Palace

    See the remains of the Royal Palace of Ugarit, the administrative complex covering over 10,000 square meters where the tablets with the Ugaritic alphabet were found, the largest Bronze Age palace in Syria demonstrating the wealth of this ancient trading city.

  3. 3

    Alphabetic Tablets

    Learn about the extraordinary Ugaritic alphabet found here, the 30-character cuneiform script developed around 1400 BCE that was one of the earliest alphabetic writing systems, the direct ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet and ultimately of all modern alphabets.

  4. 4

    Temple of Baal

    See the Temple of Baal at Ugarit where the Storm God of the ancient Canaanite religion was worshipped, the mythological texts found here including the Baal Cycle providing our most complete account of Canaanite religion and mythology.

  5. 5

    Ancient Harbor

    Understand the ancient harbor of Ugarit from which the Bronze Age ships of this extraordinary trading city sailed to Cyprus, Egypt, the Aegean, and Mesopotamia, the international connections of Ugarit visible in the goods and languages found in its palace archives.

  6. 6

    Ugarit Museum

    Visit the small site museum where tablets, objects, and explanatory materials help interpret the extraordinary finds from this Bronze Age city that collapsed suddenly around 1200 BCE in the mysterious Bronze Age collapse that ended the ancient world order.

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