Ugarit saw its beginnings in the Neolithic period, the site was occupied from the end of the 8th millennium BC and continued as a settlement through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages.

[13][14][15] Diplomatic relations with Egypt continued, as evidenced by two letters sent by Niqmaddu II (EA49) and his wife Ḫeba (EA48), probably sent to Akhenaten (1351–1334 BC).

[19] At this time Ugarit possessed a large army and navy and both joined with Hittite forces to try and stem the oncoming enemy, eventually having to fall back from Anatolia to the Syrian border.

[19]At the end Ammurapi begs for forces from the Hittite viceroy at Carchemish, the enemy having captured Ugarit's other port, Ra’šu, and was advancing on the city.

[19] By excavating the highest levels of the city's ruins, archaeologists have studied various attributes of Ugaritic civilization just before their destruction and compared artifacts with those of nearby cultures to help establish dates.

The destruction levels of the ruin contained Late Helladic IIIB pottery ware, but no LH IIIC (see Mycenaean period).

Since an Egyptian sword bearing the name of pharaoh Merneptah was found in the destruction levels, 1190 BC was taken as the date for the beginning of the LH IIIC.

[22] Bay, an official of the Egyptian queen Twosret, in a tablet (RS 86.2230) found at Ras Shamra, was in communication with Ammurapi, the last ruler of Ugarit.

Given that Ugarit was abandoned between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages it is thought that the earliest names on the list were more on the order of tribal chiefs than kings.

[24][25][26][27][28] After its destruction in the early 12th century BC, Ugarit's location was forgotten until 1928 when a peasant accidentally opened an old tomb while plowing a field.

[32] A brief investigation of a looted tomb at the necropolis of Minet el-Beida was conducted by Léon Albanèse in 1928, who then examined the main mound of Ras Shamra.

[33] Beginning in 1929 excavations of Ugarit were conducted by a French team called the Mission de Ras Shamra led by archaeologist Claude Schaeffer from the Musée archéologique in Strasbourg.

Primarily it used the East Semitic Akkadian language which acted as the lingua franca throughout the region for diplomacy, business, and administrative purposes.

One tablet mentions the enthronement of Kassite ruler Kadashman-Harbe II (c. 1223 BC) whose rule lasted less than a year, allowing a tight synchronism.

All is well with me, my households, my countries, my wives, my sons, my troops, my horses and my chariots.… In exchange of the gift which you had sent me, I sent to you thirty-three (ingots of) copper; their weight is thirty talents and six-thousand and five-hundred shekels.

It comprised rooms arranged around courtyards, encompassing 6,500 square meters before the city's destruction in the early 12th century BC.

[69] The palace was well constructed, predominantly crafted from stone, with preserved ashlar blocks reaching heights of up to 4 meters.

Below ground, beneath two northern rooms, lay family tombs—three large chambers constructed with corbelled vaults—found devoid of any contents.

[2] The Acropolis, positioned in the Ugarit's northeastern section, housed the city's primary temples dedicated to Baal and his father, Dagan.

Some tablets demonstrated writing exercises and included syllabic and bilingual lexicons, implying the building's use as a center for scribe training.

Its proximity to the primary temples and the discovery of bronze tools, particularly four small adzes and a dedicated hoe, hints at its potential role as the residence of the city's chief priest.

[66] Among a cache of seventy-four bronze items uncovered beneath a doorway threshold inside the house, was an elegant tripod adorned with pomegranate-shaped pendants.

Ras Ibn Hani, on a promontory overlooking the Mediterranean 5 kilometers south of the city, was discovered during commercial construction in 1977.

[77] This port town, featuring an urban layout akin to the city of Ugarit, displays irregular street formations.

Dwellings were structured around courtyards with adjacent rooms, including provisions like wells, ovens, and occasionally subterranean tombs.

[78][79] Artifacts discovered in the port indicate the predominance of native Ugaritians within the local populace, accompanied by a significant presence of various foreign communities such as Egyptians, Cypriots, Hittites, Hurrians, and Aegean peoples.

[76] Among the discoveries were Cypriot pottery (both imported and locally crafted), Mycenaean pottery, ivory cosmetic containers from Egypt, a terracotta depiction of Hathor, bronze tools and weaponry, cylinder seals, stone weights, remnants of banded dye-murex shells used in the production of purple dye, and inscribed tablets.

[80][81] The site is thought to have been largely evacuated before it was burned (resulting in a thick ash layer) and destroyed as few valuables were found in the residences or in the southern palace.

It possesses two genders (masculine and feminine), three cases for nouns and adjectives (nominative, accusative, and genitive); three numbers: (singular, dual, and plural); and verb aspects similar to those found in other Northwest Semitic languages.

[84] Apart from royal correspondence with neighboring Bronze Age monarchs, Ugaritic literature from tablets found in the city's libraries include mythological texts written in a poetic narrative, letters, legal documents such as land transfers, a few international treaties, and a number of administrative lists.