What do you think?
Rate this book
Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World)
The Ugaritic ritual texts provide the only extensive documentary data for Late Bronze cultic practice in the greater Syro-Palestinian region. These texts, in a West-Semitic language that belongs to the same family as Hebrew and Aramaic, reflect the actual practice of a sacrificial cult in the city of Ugarit in the late twelfth-early eleventh centuries B.C.E. Based on new collations of the tablets, these texts and translations provide ready access to this direct witness to the form taken by one of the predecessors of the biblical sacrificial cult. In addition to the narrowly ritual texts, which were composed in prose and in a very laconic form of expression, a number of poetic texts are presented that reveal the ideological link that existed between cultic practice and the concept of royalty. While the prose ritual texts document a regular system of offerings to the great deities of the pantheon, related directly to the lunar cycle and less directly to the solar year, some of the poetic texts reveal the desire on the part of the kings of Ugarit to maintain ties with their departed ancestors. The kings saw their effective power as consisting of a continuum from the royal ancestors through to the reigning king and the passage of this power as being effected by ritual practice. More mundane concerns were also addressed ritually, such as protecting horses or other equids from snakebite, finding a cure for a sick child, or defending people from attack by sorcerers. The practice of divination at Ugarit is documented by other texts, both in the form of "manuals," collections of collections of omens from past practice, and in the form of accounts of real-world consultations with a divinatory priest by someone seeking guidance.
316 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2002
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2011
Some how I was not so jazzed about this book. It was scholarly and well written but it was just too dry. It would be great for the scholar and to get anything out of the book you need good background knowledge of Canaanite Mythology. The book is based on finding of Ugaritic religious text uncovered or at Ras Shamra. Contained in this book are Deity list, steps for how to do certain rites, drinking or Marzihu rites along with incantations and Historiolae.
One major problem I found with the book was that the texts were far from complete. In fact in certain of the texts major chunks were missing. This is no fault of the author who is just trying to relay the information as he receives it. Perhaps a possible remedy was to include some background or filler information in layman terms that would make for informative and interesting reading.
One learns that there are several cults in Ugaritic religion not just one central religion. This work focused on the cult of the royalty. The religious text tells on what days certain sacrifices should be made and to what gods and what days they should be made. The king is told to bathe where to begin and when his responsibility his ended. The text does not tell where the sacrifices happen and from where the animal sacrifices should come from. It does not say to who it goes to either. It seems that sacrifices to male gods were more frequent but that part of the animal could be eaten. When the fewer sacrifices were made the entire animal was burned or part of it was given to the water.
The deity lists show heavy Babylonian influence and even have Sumerian words in them. This could be from the Amorites who preceded then in ruler ship of the area . The Amorites also assimilated Babylonian culture quite readily. While certain religious components show Babylonian, Hurrian and Hittite influence the Ugaritic texts pertaining to divination shown marked difference from Babyonian characteristic and that of the neighbors. Be it known that deity names and language from surrounding cultures had definitely seeped in.
Incantations were mentioned especially in a defense against snake bits and scorpions who were thought to have been sent by sorcerers. Ugarit Magic was geared primarily for defense against sorcerers and the evil eye. The evil eye in Canaanite magic is seen as a separate entity apart from the sorcerer. There are also defenses against incantation, familiars of sorcerers and companions of sorcerers. Lastly there is a defense against male impotence which was also thought ton be cause by a sorcerers magic.
Over all an acceptable book that is geared mostly toward the scholarly. If I was a layman I would enhance my knowledge elsewhere.
One major problem I found with the book was that the texts were far from complete. In fact in certain of the texts major chunks were missing. This is no fault of the author who is just trying to relay the information as he receives it. Perhaps a possible remedy was to include some background or filler information in layman terms that would make for informative and interesting reading.
One learns that there are several cults in Ugaritic religion not just one central religion. This work focused on the cult of the royalty. The religious text tells on what days certain sacrifices should be made and to what gods and what days they should be made. The king is told to bathe where to begin and when his responsibility his ended. The text does not tell where the sacrifices happen and from where the animal sacrifices should come from. It does not say to who it goes to either. It seems that sacrifices to male gods were more frequent but that part of the animal could be eaten. When the fewer sacrifices were made the entire animal was burned or part of it was given to the water.
The deity lists show heavy Babylonian influence and even have Sumerian words in them. This could be from the Amorites who preceded then in ruler ship of the area . The Amorites also assimilated Babylonian culture quite readily. While certain religious components show Babylonian, Hurrian and Hittite influence the Ugaritic texts pertaining to divination shown marked difference from Babyonian characteristic and that of the neighbors. Be it known that deity names and language from surrounding cultures had definitely seeped in.
Incantations were mentioned especially in a defense against snake bits and scorpions who were thought to have been sent by sorcerers. Ugarit Magic was geared primarily for defense against sorcerers and the evil eye. The evil eye in Canaanite magic is seen as a separate entity apart from the sorcerer. There are also defenses against incantation, familiars of sorcerers and companions of sorcerers. Lastly there is a defense against male impotence which was also thought ton be cause by a sorcerers magic.
Over all an acceptable book that is geared mostly toward the scholarly. If I was a layman I would enhance my knowledge elsewhere.
March 8, 2020
No doubt that academics specializing in this area of study will find this book more useful than I did. It has roughly the information I was looking for but does not paint a foundational picture of Ugaritic religion. Rather it assumes you already know the foundations and instead explains translation details of the individual Ugaritic tablets. The writing style is overall pretty dry and unapproachable unless you already know what the author is talking about. Useful nuggets are mostly buried in walls of flavorless text. I will need other sources first in order to make this book more useful.
May 28, 2023
Excellent (and rather enjoyable) anthology of Ugaritic ritual texts amongst other genres. I found Pardee’s conclusions to be succinct and agreeable and also found the introductions before each piece to be informative. With that said, I do take issue with the original Ugaritic being presented in romanised Latin format however, and while I appreciate this seems to be the norm, I do not understand why they can’t use proper cuneiform. If one can understand romanised Ugaritic then I highly doubt they can’t understand it’s alphabetic script as well.
February 2, 2023
What would I do without this book? It provides so much empirical data on which offerings went to which god, and which gods showed up in the offering lists. I don’t think I could have asked for something better than to learn Bahatima received a bowl of dirt clods as an offering. Jokes aside, this is a tremendously useful resource to paint a picture of Ugaritic cult and I’m glad to have it in my library.
June 13, 2024
A good resource. His concluding chapter is especially helpful for cutting through the noise of half-eaten texts and finding the patterns across the corpus.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews