This 16 cm ivory bust of a prince from the royal palace of Ugarit is one of the National Museum of Damascus' most precious acquisitions. Those noble expressions and this powerful face have proudly been displayed on Syrian stamps and banknote (the 500 SP) for decades. Syrians are simply in love with this effigy courtesy of an anonymous artist from the 14th century B.C.
It all started with an accidental discovery made by a Syrian peasant plowing his field in March 1928 near the bay of Minet el-Beida, located a dozen kilometers north of Latakia. Numerous ancient potteries found by our hero in what seemed to be a funerary vault prompted the authorities to dispatch a scientific expedition the following year led by the French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer. Excavating the neighboring Tell (mound) of Ras Shamra resulted in the identification of the ancient city of Ugarit, already mentioned by the Egyptian Tell al-Amarna letters as well as some Hittite documents.
Further probing demonstrated an occupation of the site since the 7th millennium B.C., prior to the invention of pottery. The third millennium saw the appearance of bronze and the arrival of the Canaanites (or Phoenicians according to Herodotus and the Greeks) who imposed their language on their predecessors and emerged as the dominant population of the city by 2300 B.C.
Ugarit grew and flourished starting from the beginning of the second millennium. It developed commercial ties with the Nile Valley, Crete, Mycenae, Cyprus. It also received new arrivals: Hurrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, who contributed to its prosperity. Egyptian influence gradually increased effective the beginning of the 16th century and Thutmose III installed his mercenaries in the city in the first half of the 15th. The Battle of Kadesh in the 13th century resulted in a stalemate and the division of Syria into spheres of influence between the Egyptian Empire and that of the Hittite Ugarit falling under the latter's hegemony.
Ugarit was destroyed by the Sea People, mysterious invaders from the north who ravaged the Syrian cost shortly after the year 1200 BC.
It all started with an accidental discovery made by a Syrian peasant plowing his field in March 1928 near the bay of Minet el-Beida, located a dozen kilometers north of Latakia. Numerous ancient potteries found by our hero in what seemed to be a funerary vault prompted the authorities to dispatch a scientific expedition the following year led by the French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer. Excavating the neighboring Tell (mound) of Ras Shamra resulted in the identification of the ancient city of Ugarit, already mentioned by the Egyptian Tell al-Amarna letters as well as some Hittite documents.
Further probing demonstrated an occupation of the site since the 7th millennium B.C., prior to the invention of pottery. The third millennium saw the appearance of bronze and the arrival of the Canaanites (or Phoenicians according to Herodotus and the Greeks) who imposed their language on their predecessors and emerged as the dominant population of the city by 2300 B.C.
Ugarit grew and flourished starting from the beginning of the second millennium. It developed commercial ties with the Nile Valley, Crete, Mycenae, Cyprus. It also received new arrivals: Hurrians, Egyptians, Cypriots, who contributed to its prosperity. Egyptian influence gradually increased effective the beginning of the 16th century and Thutmose III installed his mercenaries in the city in the first half of the 15th. The Battle of Kadesh in the 13th century resulted in a stalemate and the division of Syria into spheres of influence between the Egyptian Empire and that of the Hittite Ugarit falling under the latter's hegemony.
Ugarit was destroyed by the Sea People, mysterious invaders from the north who ravaged the Syrian cost shortly after the year 1200 BC.
Gérard Degeorge
Syrie
Art, Histoire, Architecture
Hermann, éditeurs des sciences et des arts
1983
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