Knowing how the story was going to end, the video was making me get sadder and sadder. Ugarit is a city that has always sparked special feelings me, due mostly to the sad final letters. Thank you for covering this city in one of your great videos!
Yeah, same. I remember when I first heard or read that letter years ago, I really didn't know the significance of the city of Ugarit... I just thought it was some typical port city. Only later did I realize what was lost in its destruction. Will definitely revisit this Ugarit in other videos for sure! Thanks my friend for watching and glad you enjoyed the video!
@@mdstanton1813 yeah Ammurapi seems completely lost and in a state of panic ..."the country lies undefended... if there are any other enemy ships, send me word, I want to be kept informed..." He knows that the Hittite king is not coming to save him... 😟
@Tom Morrison oh you're in luck my friend... going to cover all of this with the letters in the near future! In the meantime, see if you can get your hands on the book "Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age" by Trevor Bryce. It has a lot of the letters you mentioned in them and he explains their context very well. Enjoy!
Janitor Queen - I have a good one for you - what do you call a psychic midget that escapes from prison?? A small medium at large!! Ha Ha - the old ones are some of the best ones..
Im Syrian and Im from latakia the city near ugarit thank you so much for telling our stories and history for me ugarit has a very special place in my heart and I feel very connected to this place every time I go there.. but that’s so sad the most of artifacts of Ugarit are now in France!! Rather to be in its original land !
@@crypts761 The archaeological site was discovered when Syria was under the French mandate, so most of the archaeological artifacts discovered at this site were transferred to France. Syria still has a few.
I have been enjoying your quotations from the Amarna Letters as well as the archives in Ugarit. My studens once described this correspondence as clay-mail. Keep up your excellent work and many thanks!
Haha I love the term "clay mail"... I'm thinking of meme that one could create using it haha. I really enjoy examining such letters because I feel that helps us to venture a little bit further into the minds of the people involved from this time. Maybe I'll do a series on just letters and correspondence from the ancient world... there are lots of really interesting and even funny letters that we could go over. Anyway, thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Man, you are an absolute treasure to the lay historian interested in ancient mediterranean history. There are few on RUclips who can put together such a coherent and absorbable narrative about this era. I have nothing to say really, other than that. Cheers! You are making the world a better place for at least a few of us.
I'm inclined to think that "the Sea Peoples" are very much the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. You mention an overdependence on Hatti in your video, but it's also worth noticing that Ugarit's kings were reluctant and at worst rebellious vassals who were constantly reprimanded for evading their responsibilities -- and of course, at the same time, the Hittite kings were facing their own problems with the collapsing empire. At the same time, we have strong evidence of a complex society living essentially hand-to-mouth and relying on grain imports from Egypt even in regular times, and increasingly pressured by famine (insert Kaniewski's controversial data on aridification and climate change around 3.2ka BP here). This seems to cause a bit of a vicious cycle where poor harvests and the loss of productive farmland leads to increased urbanisation (Yon talks about how buildings were repeatedly subdivided to make more, smaller dwellings during Ugarit's final phase), less production, and disaffected Ugarites being reduced to apiru-style brigandage (which is described in a lot of letters over the course of some 50+ years). In that light, I wouldn't hesitate to take Eshuwara at his word when he claims that a significant portion of the "Sea Peoples" then active between Cyprus and the Levantine Coast were either from the area of Ugarit or had their bases there. I'm thinking less "invasion" and more "gradual erosion through long-term coastal and land-based raiding combined with an influx of displaced persons from Europe".
The cause of the Bronze Age Collapse is a question I might waste a genies wish on. Of course, whatever happened we know it was aliens. History channel proved all historical mysteries can be answered with that one word freeing us to move on to the next mystery, which is also aliens. They simplified historical research to the point we don’t even need evidence. The only discussions left are how aliens helped or hurt humanity. My personal favorite is the Sea Peoples were aliens. Also, if you’re a real history channel and you do a huge series on ancient aliens you’re not a real history channel. My personal view on the Bronze Age Collapse is that it was a systems collapse. Did the Sea People’s start it? Maybe, probably not. The Mycenaeans, if in a stable state, should have been able to stop it. Did they take advantage of it? Absolutely. I actually think the Mycenaeans are key in that they were the first obstacle for invaders from the rest of the Mediterranean world and Europe. They were also the main trade connection between the western Mediterranean and Europe. I think that trade connection was far more important then a lot of people realize. They basically lost a central part of a vast trading network and replaced it with a bunch of revolting peasants and barbarian invaders. The reverberations would have been enormous. Or it could just be a lot of things (famines, revolts, wars, supply chain disruptions, invaders etc.) went wrong all at once and there was nothing even a king could do apart from joining in the chaos.
Also, I realize I kindof contradicted myself. To clarify, I think it was a system collapse started when the Mycenaean kingdoms collapsed. It might have come from internal revolts or some other societal collapse or it might have come from a barbarian invasion. The system collapse is the important bit.
Those sea peoples were the Sardinians and Minoans from Iberia and Brittany, and had been in the region since around 4000BC, the consecutive waves eventually ended around 1200BC with the eruption of Thera which obviously drastically affected the entire Mediterranean. These Iberian Celts became the foundation of the Phoenican, Sumerian and and Egyptian cultures before being driven out from around 600BC, shipping back to Western Europe, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, as well as Mesoamerica. The same Zodiac traditions relating to the afterlife can be found in 40 N American Tribes, the 2 feathers Native American Tribes wore in their hair was a display of worship for El Gebal, the Nameless Women of Leo, so too the Feathered Crowns or the Serpent Kings. We still use their Zodiac today
I'm reading the Iliad. In it Achilles is recorded as having sacked no fewer than 25 cities, none of them in Achaean lands. What can we read between the lines, given that the fall of Troy can be dated to the Bronze Age Collapse?
Thank you for yet another excellent episode. I think it's remarkable that we still have so many well-preserved documents and letters from this period. It's nice to hear so many personal accounts in addition to more formal proclamations and such. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
I've been interested in Ugarit for some time but i've never heard of Amishtamuru. She sounds like an interesting character! Great video as always Cy. Thanks for your work ❤✌
Yeah the stories that we get from some of these letters are truly fascinating, especially ones like that which I'm sure weren't made public but just stashed away in some palace archive. Today, that would have all been tabloid fodder! Thanks man for watching, really appreciate it and more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Yeah Syria is a country I'd also love to visit one day but too dangerous for me at the moment. Let's see what the future holds though... Thanks for watching, stay safe!
@@HistorywithCy Many great ancient cultures are located these days in some terrible modern state where danger and lack of basic things are very obvious, this is so sad, I would also love to visit such places (Syria, Iraq, Afganistan, Burma, Cambodia, ... and others) but I sure will not risk it. History is a strange thing - imagine a region which totally rocked around 3000-2000 BC and now in 2021 the same region totally sucks... It is not fair, man, really sad... Armenia ´s capital is safe at least. It is also peculiar that young cultures such as the USA are so much richer /I mean money/ than those cultures, who are historically and culturally richer. Poor Syria...
Wonderful wholly overlooked significant bronze age city: archeology magazine had a recent article on ugarit; you're a better bronze age voyager than Odysseus! Thanks, be safe!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video! I'll have to check out that issue of archaeology magazine. I used to often go through at my uni library but haven't read it in a while, which is bad because it was a great magazine with compelling articles and photos. Thanks again and stay safe!
Just a little note: The Ugaritic writing system is more of "Abjadic" than "Alphabetic". A term typically used for scripts that focus on consonants (related to the nature of the language itself being based on roots of consonants, typically 3-letter) such as Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew.
@@chalinofalcone871 Yes. Phoenician had a very specific set of sound mergers that gave it the 22 letters that all its derivatives had to live with. For example, the Hebrews had to use at least shin, heth, and 'ayin to represent two sounds each, so it wouldn't make sense for the Phoenician 22 letters to be "proto-Hebrew". There would be no good reason for Hebrews to come up with a defective system for their own language. And the Phoenician inventory of 22 consonants is even known to have been in place during Ugaritic times. One of the several abecedaries found in Ugarit represents the well known later Phoenician consonant inventory and order.
Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it! Yeah it took a bit longer but was worth it for me... there was so much more that I could have added but couldn't due to time. Thanks again and stay safe!
Ugarit also shows us the few mythical tales of the Semitic gods that we know of, such as the Ba'al cycle. I hope you will cover some mythology in the future!
I think combining mythology with archaeological evidence on the ground it could be possible to push into some of the dark zones of historical information. Like Heracles was around during the lat Bronze Age or at least the earliest evidence for Heracles stories are from around 1280 BC. Maybe there’s evidence for something from just before that time or during that time that may have inspired the myth. Like the Mycenaean expansion in 1400 BC where they supposed made it to Spain, which is about as far as Heracles was supposed to have gone, might be a candidate time period for a historical event that may have inspired a myth.
@@scottnunnemaker5209 Gospel of Hercules story of Hercules was brought into Levant or Canaan and changed to Milqart(u). He too like Hercules is demigod and strength hero.
@@scottnunnemaker5209 Phoenicians and Greeks trade tales sea wise. Kananian mythologies with Hellenic might explain the similarities. Archaeology is one work and history and lore study too is another and also logical thought is another as well.
Ugarit is a great reminder that all things fall and are forgotten Yet, its hidden memory endured and eventually re emerged from the field like the farmer's crops. Thanks to it we know so much about Canaan, its religion, the origin of the modern western language and even about cultures even more ancient like the Hurrians. The himn to Nikkal is genuinely breath taking and the Baal cycle is incredible because of the biblical connection. It caused my fascination with the levant. Wich is why this year I am gonna make a comic book about the canaanite gods' reaction to the israelites arrival to canaan and the fall of Jerico.
I think they were called Hebrews at that time. I think Israelite came after the return from Babylon. But also most likely the Hebrews were one tribe in Canaan that worshiped a different God from the rest of the canaanites as opposed to an invading force they were a group from within
Wow, those first few lines you wrote are quite poetic actually. I agree that the discoveries of various tablet's outlining the religious diversity of beliefs in Ugarit are truly fascinating and I think I'll put something together on that topic in the near future. Also, would love to see the comic book when it's done... I don't think I've seen one from a Canaanite perspective! Thanks for watching my friend and also for comments like these; they motivate me to put out more for you all who really enjoy this stuff!
@@RunesandReapers I don’t know of any archaeological records pointing to a people who identified as “Hebrew” or the levantine equivalent (Eber/Ivri). I do know the Mereneptah Stele (1208 BC) mention a people called “Israel” as well as the Tel Dan stele (9th century BC) that mentions 2 kings of “Israel”. This is well before the babylonian exile in 586 BC.
@@HistorywithCy Do not worry Cy, I will gladly show it once its finished. It's a school project for this year's exams. Thank you for the kind words! I really appreciate them, truly. I will be more than happy to see what you'll come up with in the future! I'll wait for the next video.😄
This was great Cy! Thanks to you and your Patreons. Man if you guys did one of these for all of those coastal cities around Ugarit during that time it would be amazing! Tyre!
Thanks, glad you liked it! Actually, Byblos is on the list for the current round of voting, but so far it's behind a couple of other landlocked cities. But in future I think we'll be revisiting the coastal cities of the eastern Mediterranean for sure! Thanks again for watching, really appreciate it... stay safe!
My pleasure and glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, same, especially after the first time that I read that letter from its king to the ruler of Cyprus. I didn't know anything about the city at the time and only later learned how amazing it was. Thanks again for watching, stay safe!
Thanks, glad you liked it! Yeah, I love reading primary sources whenever possible... adds a whole new, more human dimension to the story. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Finally got a chance to watch this -- as usual fantastic stuff Cy. Videos like these are proof positive that if you want good content on history, whether it's what you cover, or WWII by Mark Felton, Told in Stone by Garrett Ryan...and I could go on and on...you don't look to the traditional venues, you look to independent video makers like yourself.
I'm glad you appreciate this channel, but in all honesty, I consider its content much superior to what's produced by the other channels you mentioned. This is truly some extraordinary content!
So, I recently commented on another video of yours asking to bring Danny Hussain back for another Babylonian video. I was thinking recently "hey, next time Cy posts I will write to him that he should also make an Ugarit video". It seems that this was the will of Nabu, Marduk, and Ahura Mazda all along! Now I am on a bus and studying Akkadian flashcards, I'm going to watch this video as soon as I'm alone at home. Keep up the great work!!!
That's awesome, glad you're excited about this and studying Akkadian! I think I'll also do a video on religion in ancient Ugarit since its pretty fascinating and a topic all on its own. Good luck with studying and I'll contact Danny to see if he's down to do some more voices. Thanks again and stay safe!
Great information! The animations made me feel like the board game Seven Wonders is super accurate. Thank you for fleshing out something I know very little about.
Really good this. I have thought for some time that the cities that became Phoenicia did a deal with the Sea People - after all they were the greatest traders of the bronze age. Something along the lines of "We will pay you this silver and these provisions if you leave us alone. Also there are richer pickings to the south and east of us , amongst our trade rivals. Afterwards when you have found plunder and land send some of your men back to us and we shall hire them to guard our ships and caravans. How's that for a great deal?"
Could also be that the cities to the South may have also had better defences to make Sea Peoples think twice about warfare. A millenia and a half later the Byzantines used to pay off enemies in such a way - take the money or face the (extremely formidable) army. If Ugarit had only a weak army and that was elswehere due to Hittite requirements the Sea Peoples could have seen Ugarit defenceslessness and thought - may as well take it all, they can't stop us anyway.
@@Boric78 Yeah I think that's what likely happened, plus the Canaanite/Phoenician cities had a lot of ships of their own, so if the Sea Peoples were coming by sea (no pun intended) instead of by land, they probably would have had a harder time taking coastal cities such as Bylos, Tyre, Sidon etc. Ugarit may have been ripe for picking because, as one of the letters to the king of Cyprus states, its ships were away in Lukka and in the service of the Hittite king. I also think that the closer you got to Egypt, the harder it would have been for the Sea Peoples operate, as the Egyptians at the time were highly organized and could muster significant forces. Kind of what Richard was also saying... Good points though and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
@@richardarcher7177 yeah good points... I think that overall, the Egyptian-controlled Canaanite cities were better fortified than those on the periphery of the Hittite Empire. Since their territory had bordered the Mediterranean for centuries and they were constantly sending ships all over the eastern Mediterranean, the Egyptians were a viable naval power and perhaps used to dealing with pirates and hostile ships, whereas the Hittites were ultimately from central Anatolia and had to rely on their subjects for their naval power. Like the one of the letters states, the Ugaritic fleet was away in service of the Hittite king in Lukka, so it was probably pretty defenseless like you stated. Great points and thanks for sharing with us!
@@HistorywithCy With your point of them having large fleets of ships - makes you wonder if they had contact with the Sea Peoples before they arrived. Back on "the islands" where as the Egyptian cliam they made their "conspiracy". Whilst I am no detective, there has to be a level of suspicion at just what the Phoenicians knew (maybe before?) and were up to and did?
Yeah I think that area of what's today Lebanon and western Syria were famous throughout antiquity for their cedar trees, and that's the same region that Gilgamesh is said to have journeyed to, basically what was in those days the end of the earth for people in ancient Mesopotamia. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it!
Same place King Ahab got the Cedar for building the Temple of Melqart in Tyre, otherwise known as the Temple of Solomon, or Mountain of the Moon, they also represent the Tree of life, the Zodiac of the Night Sky, brought back to life every Xmas by Nimrod, who promised to leave gifts 🎁 underneath, it is their pine cones that are featured in the ancient carvings of bird gods, the same ones worshipped by the Etruscans
@@uncannyvalley2350 Oh, that's interesting to hear they had pine cones. There are a few pine cones in ancient art and some fringe theorists say it's the pineal gland in those works of art. It makes more sense for it to be cedar cones like you describe but I just didn't know they had any such things otherwise.
@@bredmond812 no worries, Osiris/ Orion is the root of the Zodiac, the Tree of Knowledge, he appeared on the Fall equinox, September, the Egyptian, Jewish and Celtic New Year. If you're interested Ive done a video on it explaining the connections
I want to say it's the god Yam, who is associated with the sea and generally a destructive force, but I can't confirm this. I could see one of his titles though being "Master of Shipwrecks." Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Great video... The anecdotic text contents on clay tablets add life to a great presentation and illuatrate well the life conditions of the ruling classes. I really enjoyed!
Thanks my friend, glad you enjoyed this! I love reading those tablets... really humanizes some of the characters. More on the way, thanks again for watching and stay safe!
I know this is super late that I stumbled upon this but keep it going! Specifically the earliest human settlements fascinate me and this is totally in that wheelhouse
Thanks, glad you're into the topic! I will do another one on religion in Ugarit because that's extremely fascinating and could be a separate topic on its own. Thanks for stopping by, appreciate it!
Awesome, this is an episode I was waiting for (though I voted for Kish AFAIR). Thank you for all the interesting information about the city, I didn't know its history was so deeply intertwined with Hittite empire and about all the political affairs in Ugaritian court. Also that curse tablet was fascinating, especially recited by you. You would make a great Ugaritian exorcist 😀. As I mentioned on Patreon, the text is very similar in its content and style to Maqlu texts from Babylonia and it is interesting to compare them.
Thanks man, glad you liked this one. Don't worry, I'm going to make another poll for the next city - I think it was a close tie for second place between Kish and Uruk so let's see who will come out on top this time! 😂 I'd love to be an Ugaritian exorcist if the city was still around... but on that note, I do have some material somewhere on Maqlu texts that I'll try to find and put in a program. I have an outline for a giant video on daily life in ancient Mesopotamia and I could add a segment on Maqlu texts since I plan to cover witchcraft and related things there. I'll see what I can find. Thanks again for your insightful comments and all of your support, really appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy Great to hear. I love the topic of daily life very much. If you want to include segment on witchcraft and divination, I recommend series of texts called Udug Hul (literally Evil Demons). It deals with various incantation ashipu exorcist used before and during healing ceremony. They are mostly protective spells against all sorts of evil as well as invocations of Asalluhi and Ea - masters of exorcism and wisdom.
@@JustSpectre Yeah I've wanted to go over daily life for a while... most of the stuff I've done so far deals with political history, so social history is something I'm excited to delve further into. Thanks for suggestions, I'll check out the Udug Hul texts. I think I have excerpts from one of them because the name sounds familiar but I'll see if I can find more!
Cy, recommended your channel videos to another RUclips channel that reviews history video channels called vlogging through history. He’s does a great job and has a pretty big subscriber base and always recommends the channel if he reviews their video. Hope this will help your channel grow it is too good to not have more subscribers. Your videos are great especially your Bronze Age ones.
Hey, thanks so much for the recommendation, really appreciate it! I haven't seen that channel but I'll check it out. Glad that you're also enjoying the content, lots more on the Bronze Age to come, stay tuned and safe, and again, thanks for the support, really means a lot!
Thanks! Haha it's a really nice seal. Always wanted to add some Hittite merch to the store so this might be a good first design. Thanks again and stay tuned for more!
Great man, glad to be able to help kick off the day with some ancient history! Thanks for watching, really appreciate and hope you liked it... more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Thanks my friend, seriously, thrilled that you continue to enjoy these and it motivates me to put out more for you all. Thanks for the support and stay safe!
I aint never clicked on a vid so fast. I've been wanting to learn more about Ugarit every since I learned about the one tablet begging for help found from the Bronze Age Collapse.
Thanks! Yeah, same. I had read that last letter to the king of Cyprus years ago but didn't really know about the history of city as a whole until much later. More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I don’t usually comment as I am a lay student of history and not qualified for anything, but you have discovered of one of the earliest Karens ever documented!!!
@@jimmyjams9036 Thanks, means a lot that people like you enjoy this stuff. Haha in some videos I've been told I go overboard with reading the quotes so glad you like them! I love adding the primary sources though because I feel that it further humanizes the people we meet in these stories from history. Thanks again for the support, appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy Primary source quotes should always be used, if possible. With ancient history, much of what we "know" is an educated guess, at best, and we only know what we unearth and decipher. We can only go by what we find, even if it's biased. As for the quotes, don't change. It's part of what makes your videos interesting. Passion. Thanks for taking the time to reply. It makes your channel that much cooler.
Haha by now I've had some practice from saying the name in several past videos. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I sure hope we find out one day what happened to Suppiluliuma II and his army and navy. Such a shame the Ugarit warriors weren't home to defend their city, sucks being a vassal.
I can’t wait for another Ugarit to be discovered, cities like this are out there. Just look at Gobekli Tepe, which has turned our ideas of early civilization upside down!
Same, I think that they'll probably discover a lot more new civilizations in parts of the world that archaeology has mostly neglected, for example, remote parts of South America or sub-Saharan Africa. About two decades ago they found the Jiroft Civilization which was pretty incredible. Thanks for stopping by, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I love this video, its nice to have people talk about lesser known peoples and mythologies. I would like to know about what music in this vid was used? I would love to listen to that also.
I didn’t realise that any Pagan Canaanites still practiced. Excuse my ignorance. I’m Pagan but from the other side of the world to the Levant although I’ve visited there. It makes me so happy to know that there are still those who know the old gods and goddesses in that region. ✌️
Thanks my friend and glad you enjoyed this one! All is well over here and hope that things on your end are also great! More ancient cities on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Thank you very much for this video. It was ammazing, i just want to ask if there is a possibility to explain more about the historical achievemnets of ugarit people in the domain of littirature, music and other things which ugarit people were very advanced in. Thanks again for this nice video
Oedipus and Akhnaten is one of my favorite books, and your videos always make me think about Ages in Chaos. Please relate some modern findings to Velikovsky’s wonderful theories. Great work, as always
Ugarit and their religion is interesting. Would like to see developments on the Iranian plateau Zagros Mtn sites, Elam, Jiroft, Helmand, S Turkmenistan/BMAC etc. Prehistory. Bava !, greetings from India 🇮🇳
Hi thanks for stopping, all the way from India! Really appreciate it! All great topics. I had done some earlier videos on Elam and Jiroft and hope to do more some other content on the so-called Luristan bronzes and BMAC. These are plans for early 2022. Thanks for the suggestions, stay tuned and safe!
Ugarit was a hybrid. It used standard cuneiform but aimined for a sound based alphabet rather than symbol based. Definitely a key stage in the development of the written word.
Very cool. I thought it was interesting that Ugarit had a cuneiform alphabet, as I believe that the alphabet probably started in the Levant based on the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Do you reckon they might have gotten the idea from Ugarit?
Hi, thanks for watching and great question! Most believe that the predecessor to the Alphabet may have come from the Sinai, but was of Canaanite origin. After that, it was used and further developed in other Canaanite cities. So, it's likely that the idea for the alphabet was not from Ugarit itself, but my guess is that being such a cosmopolitan hub and so intertwined with Canaanite culture, scribes and traders in Ugarit must have learned about the alphabet from other Canaanites and developed one of their own based using cuneiform characters. Anyway, thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
11:19 I wonder what he means by “bread of fasting” and whether it is in any way related to Matzah, which is the thin bread associated with the passover holiday. It would be interesting but not surprising if such a bread has roots that go back to Ugarit.
Cy, thank you for your interesting document on Ugarit. But once more I just must make a tiny critique on names of cities: Antioch(eia on Orontes) was known by that name for 1000 years before being conquered by Ottomans in 1516 and even lately renamed to Antakya. So, I think it is appropriate to use the old name. In fact, you are doing the same in the case of Halab, better known as Aleppo, or Constantinople vs Istanbul. That the Turks renamed all the cities in Asia Minor even if they ruined them as if they have anything in common with their history, that was hundreds of years old even before the first Seljuk raiders appeared, it need not be the must for a historian.
But Cy, you didn't answer the most important question... ... did the farmer mentioned in the beginning of the video eventually manage to plow his field? 😬
Haha my guess is probably not since within the next couple of years the site was under excavation. I hope though that he at least got compensated for the treasures under his farm! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
The strangest thing is not the citys sacking but that it was not reinhabited afterwards. I mean the area was not depopulated enough to no have inhabited cities and towns throughout this chaotic period. I mean it would have to have been completely uninhabited for many years to become forgotten but the valuable location of the city would still be a valid place for a new city even if the old was fully forgotten.
Can you do a video on Alalakh, Charchemish, Emar, Mukish and the Nuhashsh and how about Arwad, Qatna, Hamath, Simyra, Ardata, Batrun, Beirut, Damascus, and Akko
Good video, but the constant ad interruptions detract from it greatly - you should put the ads at the beginning and end only otherwise it diminishes your work
Hey thanks for stopping by and the comment, appreciate it! Actually YT places the comments, I just set the video for monetization. I'm not sure how their ad algorithm works because some people get few ads, others more. I'll look into this though... thanks again and stay safe!
The ugaritic abjad is actually a cuneiform representation of the phoenician abjad If you compare the two you will see that they are actually the same The ugaritic abjad has several augments or extra symbols for those ugaritic sounds not present in phoenician
According to Wikipedia, Ahatmilku is the wife of king Niqmepa and mother of Ammittamru. She supported Ammittamru's succession to the theone after the death of her husband and also banished two of her sons. There is no mention of her banishment or execution because of some sin. Please clarify. Is the wikipedia wrong here? (I'm asking coz there are some misinfo in wikipedia)
This helps fill in some gaps in my assertion that Akhnaten's older brother, who would have been Thutmose V, was the real Moses of the bible, who engineered the fall of Egypt as the preeminent power of the Eastern Mediterranean, and fills in some important details about the Sea Peoples that were airbrushed from history and hid the deep ties between Ugarit and the homelands of that wave of ancient Vikings who carried a new form of polytheist christology back to sow the seeds of the post-Mosaic Abrahamic faiths.
Interesting knowledge that Mycenaean pottery was found at the site. The fact that such pottery was also found in sites of Philistia has given rise to the theory that Philistines were from the Aegean. No doubt the Philistines, like the people of Ugarit and others, were importing the ceramics and not making them.
An additional fact to mention is that Ugaritic texts present many literary and religious parallels to biblical texts and literature at that period of time.
I think that may have been part of it, along with having more financial resources and autonomy to act on their own, vs Ugarit which was in my opinion too reliant on direction from the Hittite gov. Thanks for watching, appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy I mean maybe? I didn’t think that the Phoenicians were great trade powers till after 900BC? I.e. after the Bronze Age collapse. Before that they would have been merely vassals of Egypt or the Hitties? No? I think Ugarit-Cyprus-Crete would have been the real trade powers at the period we’re discussing
@@chrisamon4551 Good points and I think you're correct. All of these coastal cities along with Cyprus and Crete were prosperous trade hubs, so I don't think that finances were an issue. Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were technically part of the Egyptian empire at the time (and had been for centuries), so though their trade policy may have been independent, they were still Egyptian protectorates. In my opinion, the Egyptian military was still much more powerful around 1200 BC than that of the waning Hittite Empire, and I think that Ugarit was ripe for the picking because the Hittites were bearing the brunt of sea people attacks and massive revolts in Anatolia and could not protect a distant outpost such as Ugarit. The people who attacked Ugarit probably knew this and decided to take the city rather than be paid off. With regard to the Canaanite cities further to the south, by then the Egyptian military would have been alerted and the pharaoh (in this case Ramesses III) was already preparing to encounter the Sea Peoples in battle (which he eventually did and claims to have defeated them). Groups of sea peoples probably just felt it would be easier to collect money and move on. That's my opinion at least... Definitely a fun discussion, would be great to have a live stream on this. Thanks again for your comments, really appreciate them!
Cedars weren't just canaanites/levantine enjoyed material. The egyptians liked cedars as did the mesopotamians as well as the ancient arabians in saudi. And also the later on hebrews too.
Nice video , man ! Well, if they had a temple for Baal, I wonder if they noticed the Amazon, dual wielding frenzy Barbarian and The Necromancer with his minions going to the catacombs beneath it to level up and kill the boss for unique items :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Knowing how the story was going to end, the video was making me get sadder and sadder. Ugarit is a city that has always sparked special feelings me, due mostly to the sad final letters.
Thank you for covering this city in one of your great videos!
That final letter is bleak. I sense a hint of betrayal and abandonment in it
Yeah, same. I remember when I first heard or read that letter years ago, I really didn't know the significance of the city of Ugarit... I just thought it was some typical port city. Only later did I realize what was lost in its destruction. Will definitely revisit this Ugarit in other videos for sure! Thanks my friend for watching and glad you enjoyed the video!
@@mdstanton1813 yeah Ammurapi seems completely lost and in a state of panic ..."the country lies undefended... if there are any other enemy ships, send me word, I want to be kept informed..." He knows that the Hittite king is not coming to save him... 😟
@Tom Morrison oh you're in luck my friend... going to cover all of this with the letters in the near future! In the meantime, see if you can get your hands on the book "Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age" by Trevor Bryce. It has a lot of the letters you mentioned in them and he explains their context very well. Enjoy!
@Tom Morrison well said
The farmer is outstanding in his field
Like JM Truth?!
🤣🤣🤣 haha that's a good one! Thanks for watching, appreciate it!
When everyone else is inside sitting down; he was outstanding.
Janitor Queen - I have a good one for you - what do you call a psychic midget that escapes from prison??
A small medium at large!!
Ha Ha - the old ones are some of the best ones..
@@deandeann1541 O____o
Im Syrian and Im from latakia the city near ugarit thank you so much for telling our stories and history for me ugarit has a very special place in my heart and I feel very connected to this place every time I go there.. but that’s so sad the most of artifacts of Ugarit are now in France!! Rather to be in its original land !
What do you mean most of the ruins are in France?
@@crypts761 The archaeological site was discovered when Syria was under the French mandate, so most of the archaeological artifacts discovered at this site were transferred to France. Syria still has a few.
@@jafarsakour8807 Oh wow, do you know where in France? I couldn't find anything after looking it up.
I think the masterpieces of the site you can find them in the louver
What comes around, goes around. Once again (Dec 12, 2024) Latakia (Ugarit) has been attacked.
A most engaging presentation for a layman such as myself. Thank you.
My pleasure, thank you for watching and glad you enjoyed it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I have been enjoying your quotations from the Amarna Letters as well as the archives in Ugarit. My studens once described this correspondence as clay-mail. Keep up your excellent work and many thanks!
Haha I love the term "clay mail"... I'm thinking of meme that one could create using it haha. I really enjoy examining such letters because I feel that helps us to venture a little bit further into the minds of the people involved from this time. Maybe I'll do a series on just letters and correspondence from the ancient world... there are lots of really interesting and even funny letters that we could go over. Anyway, thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
What do the Egyptians call themselves in the Amarna letters?
CLAY MAIL! 😆😆🤣😂 LOLS CLEVER STUDENTS 😄😄😂😄👍👌
Yes the amarna letters😂 the copy paste of linear A from Crete.
Man, you are an absolute treasure to the lay historian interested in ancient mediterranean history. There are few on RUclips who can put together such a coherent and absorbable narrative about this era. I have nothing to say really, other than that. Cheers! You are making the world a better place for at least a few of us.
I'm inclined to think that "the Sea Peoples" are very much the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. You mention an overdependence on Hatti in your video, but it's also worth noticing that Ugarit's kings were reluctant and at worst rebellious vassals who were constantly reprimanded for evading their responsibilities -- and of course, at the same time, the Hittite kings were facing their own problems with the collapsing empire. At the same time, we have strong evidence of a complex society living essentially hand-to-mouth and relying on grain imports from Egypt even in regular times, and increasingly pressured by famine (insert Kaniewski's controversial data on aridification and climate change around 3.2ka BP here). This seems to cause a bit of a vicious cycle where poor harvests and the loss of productive farmland leads to increased urbanisation (Yon talks about how buildings were repeatedly subdivided to make more, smaller dwellings during Ugarit's final phase), less production, and disaffected Ugarites being reduced to apiru-style brigandage (which is described in a lot of letters over the course of some 50+ years). In that light, I wouldn't hesitate to take Eshuwara at his word when he claims that a significant portion of the "Sea Peoples" then active between Cyprus and the Levantine Coast were either from the area of Ugarit or had their bases there. I'm thinking less "invasion" and more "gradual erosion through long-term coastal and land-based raiding combined with an influx of displaced persons from Europe".
The cause of the Bronze Age Collapse is a question I might waste a genies wish on. Of course, whatever happened we know it was aliens. History channel proved all historical mysteries can be answered with that one word freeing us to move on to the next mystery, which is also aliens. They simplified historical research to the point we don’t even need evidence. The only discussions left are how aliens helped or hurt humanity. My personal favorite is the Sea Peoples were aliens. Also, if you’re a real history channel and you do a huge series on ancient aliens you’re not a real history channel.
My personal view on the Bronze Age Collapse is that it was a systems collapse.
Did the Sea People’s start it? Maybe, probably not. The Mycenaeans, if in a stable state, should have been able to stop it. Did they take advantage of it? Absolutely.
I actually think the Mycenaeans are key in that they were the first obstacle for invaders from the rest of the Mediterranean world and Europe. They were also the main trade connection between the western Mediterranean and Europe. I think that trade connection was far more important then a lot of people realize. They basically lost a central part of a vast trading network and replaced it with a bunch of revolting peasants and barbarian invaders. The reverberations would have been enormous.
Or it could just be a lot of things (famines, revolts, wars, supply chain disruptions, invaders etc.) went wrong all at once and there was nothing even a king could do apart from joining in the chaos.
Also, I realize I kindof contradicted myself. To clarify, I think it was a system collapse started when the Mycenaean kingdoms collapsed. It might have come from internal revolts or some other societal collapse or it might have come from a barbarian invasion. The system collapse is the important bit.
Thanks for your additional insights.
Those sea peoples were the Sardinians and Minoans from Iberia and Brittany, and had been in the region since around 4000BC, the consecutive waves eventually ended around 1200BC with the eruption of Thera which obviously drastically affected the entire Mediterranean. These Iberian Celts became the foundation of the Phoenican, Sumerian and and Egyptian cultures before being driven out from around 600BC, shipping back to Western Europe, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, as well as Mesoamerica. The same Zodiac traditions relating to the afterlife can be found in 40 N American Tribes, the 2 feathers Native American Tribes wore in their hair was a display of worship for El Gebal, the Nameless Women of Leo, so too the Feathered Crowns or the Serpent Kings. We still use their Zodiac today
I'm reading the Iliad. In it Achilles is recorded as having sacked no fewer than 25 cities, none of them in Achaean lands. What can we read between the lines, given that the fall of Troy can be dated to the Bronze Age Collapse?
Thank you for yet another excellent episode. I think it's remarkable that we still have so many well-preserved documents and letters from this period. It's nice to hear so many personal accounts in addition to more formal proclamations and such.
God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)
I've been interested in Ugarit for some time but i've never heard of Amishtamuru. She sounds like an interesting character!
Great video as always Cy. Thanks for your work ❤✌
Yeah the stories that we get from some of these letters are truly fascinating, especially ones like that which I'm sure weren't made public but just stashed away in some palace archive. Today, that would have all been tabloid fodder! Thanks man for watching, really appreciate it and more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
A beautiful place, I would focus on masonry details 🎥, great history! Unfortunately, Syria is currently unavailable. Thanks for another great video!
Beautiful place ❤️
Yeah Syria is a country I'd also love to visit one day but too dangerous for me at the moment. Let's see what the future holds though...
Thanks for watching, stay safe!
@@HistorywithCy Many great ancient cultures are located these days in some terrible modern state where danger and lack of basic things are very obvious, this is so sad, I would also love to visit such places (Syria, Iraq, Afganistan, Burma, Cambodia, ... and others) but I sure will not risk it. History is a strange thing - imagine a region which totally rocked around 3000-2000 BC and now in 2021 the same region totally sucks... It is not fair, man, really sad... Armenia ´s capital is safe at least. It is also peculiar that young cultures such as the USA are so much richer /I mean money/ than those cultures, who are historically and culturally richer. Poor Syria...
Great. Interesting content. Thanks for your RUclips video efforts.
Thank YOU for watching, really appreciate it!
Wonderful wholly overlooked significant bronze age city: archeology magazine had a recent article on ugarit; you're a better bronze age voyager than Odysseus! Thanks, be safe!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed the video! I'll have to check out that issue of archaeology magazine. I used to often go through at my uni library but haven't read it in a while, which is bad because it was a great magazine with compelling articles and photos. Thanks again and stay safe!
Once again I’m behind on your videos! I always love videos about these incredibly ancient civilizations!
No worries man, take your time and hope you continue to enjoy and learn from them! Lots more on the way, stay tuned and thanks for watching!
@@HistorywithCy I always do! I always enjoying learning about new things in this channel!
Underrated channel, awesome work
Thanks my friend, glad you like it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Just a little note: The Ugaritic writing system is more of "Abjadic" than "Alphabetic". A term typically used for scripts that focus on consonants (related to the nature of the language itself being based on roots of consonants, typically 3-letter) such as Arabic, Syriac and Hebrew.
YOU'RE Abjadic !
@@MrDeicide1 yeah
Same as Hebrew. Granddaddy of Hebrew.
But isnt Hebrew directly derived from Phoenician? In fact, dont some Hebrew scholars refer to Phoenician as Proto-Hebrew?
@@chalinofalcone871 Yes. Phoenician had a very specific set of sound mergers that gave it the 22 letters that all its derivatives had to live with. For example, the Hebrews had to use at least shin, heth, and 'ayin to represent two sounds each, so it wouldn't make sense for the Phoenician 22 letters to be "proto-Hebrew". There would be no good reason for Hebrews to come up with a defective system for their own language. And the Phoenician inventory of 22 consonants is even known to have been in place during Ugaritic times. One of the several abecedaries found in Ugarit represents the well known later Phoenician consonant inventory and order.
Great video as always! I could tell Ugarit has been long time in the making! Well done 💯
Thanks man, glad you enjoyed it! Yeah it took a bit longer but was worth it for me... there was so much more that I could have added but couldn't due to time. Thanks again and stay safe!
Ugarit also shows us the few mythical tales of the Semitic gods that we know of, such as the Ba'al cycle. I hope you will cover some mythology in the future!
Show respect to The Semitic gods by using the Capital G. The Semitic Gods my Gods My Lords and Ladies. They Will Respect you back.
I think combining mythology with archaeological evidence on the ground it could be possible to push into some of the dark zones of historical information. Like Heracles was around during the lat Bronze Age or at least the earliest evidence for Heracles stories are from around 1280 BC. Maybe there’s evidence for something from just before that time or during that time that may have inspired the myth. Like the Mycenaean expansion in 1400 BC where they supposed made it to Spain, which is about as far as Heracles was supposed to have gone, might be a candidate time period for a historical event that may have inspired a myth.
@@scottnunnemaker5209 Gospel of Hercules story of Hercules was brought into Levant or Canaan and changed to Milqart(u). He too like Hercules is demigod and strength hero.
@@scottnunnemaker5209 Phoenicians and Greeks trade tales sea wise. Kananian mythologies with Hellenic might explain the similarities. Archaeology is one work and history and lore study too is another and also logical thought is another as well.
@@scottnunnemaker5209 so far as we can tell even though the Hercules story we already know is about 1500 BCE
Ugarit is a great reminder that all things fall and are forgotten
Yet, its hidden memory endured and eventually re emerged from the field like the farmer's crops.
Thanks to it we know so much about Canaan, its religion, the origin of the modern western language and even about cultures even more ancient like the Hurrians.
The himn to Nikkal is genuinely breath taking and the Baal cycle is incredible because of the biblical connection.
It caused my fascination with the levant.
Wich is why this year I am gonna make a comic book about the canaanite gods' reaction to the israelites arrival to canaan and the fall of Jerico.
I think they were called Hebrews at that time. I think Israelite came after the return from Babylon.
But also most likely the Hebrews were one tribe in Canaan that worshiped a different God from the rest of the canaanites as opposed to an invading force they were a group from within
@@RunesandReapers
Yes I am aware of that.
But it's still a story I wanted to play with.
Even if not a true one.
🤷
Wow, those first few lines you wrote are quite poetic actually. I agree that the discoveries of various tablet's outlining the religious diversity of beliefs in Ugarit are truly fascinating and I think I'll put something together on that topic in the near future. Also, would love to see the comic book when it's done... I don't think I've seen one from a Canaanite perspective! Thanks for watching my friend and also for comments like these; they motivate me to put out more for you all who really enjoy this stuff!
@@RunesandReapers I don’t know of any archaeological records pointing to a people who identified as “Hebrew” or the levantine equivalent (Eber/Ivri). I do know the Mereneptah Stele (1208 BC) mention a people called “Israel” as well as the Tel Dan stele (9th century BC) that mentions 2 kings of “Israel”. This is well before the babylonian exile in 586 BC.
@@HistorywithCy
Do not worry Cy, I will gladly show it once its finished.
It's a school project for this year's exams.
Thank you for the kind words!
I really appreciate them, truly.
I will be more than happy to see what you'll come up with in the future!
I'll wait for the next video.😄
This was great Cy! Thanks to you and your Patreons. Man if you guys did one of these for all of those coastal cities around Ugarit during that time it would be amazing! Tyre!
Thanks, glad you liked it! Actually, Byblos is on the list for the current round of voting, but so far it's behind a couple of other landlocked cities. But in future I think we'll be revisiting the coastal cities of the eastern Mediterranean for sure! Thanks again for watching, really appreciate it... stay safe!
@@HistorywithCy History with Cy is a solid youtuber, confirmed! Stay safe as well man
Thanks a lot for the great video! The Ugarit city has always been of special interest to me.
My pleasure and glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, same, especially after the first time that I read that letter from its king to the ruler of Cyprus. I didn't know anything about the city at the time and only later learned how amazing it was. Thanks again for watching, stay safe!
Very good video. Helped this to understand ancient world which will help in understanding IVC.
I really dig that funky background music... goes well with the heavy dose of knowledge your dropping on us. great job. Thank you
Love your content! Great lectures, great sources. Love you reading those old messages, written at the time.
Thanks, glad you liked it! Yeah, I love reading primary sources whenever possible... adds a whole new, more human dimension to the story. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
@@HistorywithCy I agree!
Eagerly waiting for more!
Have a good one, stay save.
How beautiful and rich of culture it's
My country Syria 🥺❤️
May it stay in the shadow of Baal , Bilshmin and Ishtar 🙏
Larp
I didn't know there were syrians that still honored the old Gods. Cool
Well, given recent history . . .
It is amazing. May your prayer come true. ☺️🙏🏻
I like how there are still Syrians keeping their ancient culture, instead of following these Abrahamic religions
Another fantastically informative episode!! Thank you!!
Finally got a chance to watch this -- as usual fantastic stuff Cy.
Videos like these are proof positive that if you want good content on history, whether it's what you cover, or WWII by Mark Felton, Told in Stone by Garrett Ryan...and I could go on and on...you don't look to the traditional venues, you look to independent video makers like yourself.
Thanks, glad you liked it! Told in Stone is a great channel, I also try to watch it when I can. More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
LOLS TRUE! 😄👌👍
I'm glad you appreciate this channel, but in all honesty, I consider its content much superior to what's produced by the other channels you mentioned.
This is truly some extraordinary content!
So, I recently commented on another video of yours asking to bring Danny Hussain back for another Babylonian video. I was thinking recently "hey, next time Cy posts I will write to him that he should also make an Ugarit video". It seems that this was the will of Nabu, Marduk, and Ahura Mazda all along!
Now I am on a bus and studying Akkadian flashcards, I'm going to watch this video as soon as I'm alone at home. Keep up the great work!!!
That's awesome, glad you're excited about this and studying Akkadian! I think I'll also do a video on religion in ancient Ugarit since its pretty fascinating and a topic all on its own. Good luck with studying and I'll contact Danny to see if he's down to do some more voices. Thanks again and stay safe!
@@HistorywithCy please do indo aryan india
Great information! The animations made me feel like the board game Seven Wonders is super accurate. Thank you for fleshing out something I know very little about.
Terrific, beautifully done. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thank you!
Great video, well researched, great narration - thanks!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
One of the best on RUclips.
Love these videos my man! Thank you for all the work you put into it!!
My pleasure, thank you for watching! Many more vids on the way, stay tuned!
Really good this. I have thought for some time that the cities that became Phoenicia did a deal with the Sea People - after all they were the greatest traders of the bronze age. Something along the lines of
"We will pay you this silver and these provisions if you leave us alone. Also there are richer pickings to the south and east of us , amongst our trade rivals. Afterwards when you have found plunder and land send some of your men back to us and we shall hire them to guard our ships and caravans. How's that for a great deal?"
Could also be that the cities to the South may have also had better defences to make Sea Peoples think twice about warfare. A millenia and a half later the Byzantines used to pay off enemies in such a way - take the money or face the (extremely formidable) army. If Ugarit had only a weak army and that was elswehere due to Hittite requirements the Sea Peoples could have seen Ugarit defenceslessness and thought - may as well take it all, they can't stop us anyway.
@@richardarcher7177 That a really good point which I had never considered. Thanks.
@@Boric78 Yeah I think that's what likely happened, plus the Canaanite/Phoenician cities had a lot of ships of their own, so if the Sea Peoples were coming by sea (no pun intended) instead of by land, they probably would have had a harder time taking coastal cities such as Bylos, Tyre, Sidon etc. Ugarit may have been ripe for picking because, as one of the letters to the king of Cyprus states, its ships were away in Lukka and in the service of the Hittite king. I also think that the closer you got to Egypt, the harder it would have been for the Sea Peoples operate, as the Egyptians at the time were highly organized and could muster significant forces. Kind of what Richard was also saying...
Good points though and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
@@richardarcher7177 yeah good points... I think that overall, the Egyptian-controlled Canaanite cities were better fortified than those on the periphery of the Hittite Empire. Since their territory had bordered the Mediterranean for centuries and they were constantly sending ships all over the eastern Mediterranean, the Egyptians were a viable naval power and perhaps used to dealing with pirates and hostile ships, whereas the Hittites were ultimately from central Anatolia and had to rely on their subjects for their naval power. Like the one of the letters states, the Ugaritic fleet was away in service of the Hittite king in Lukka, so it was probably pretty defenseless like you stated. Great points and thanks for sharing with us!
@@HistorywithCy With your point of them having large fleets of ships - makes you wonder if they had contact with the Sea Peoples before they arrived. Back on "the islands" where as the Egyptian cliam they made their "conspiracy". Whilst I am no detective, there has to be a level of suspicion at just what the Phoenicians knew (maybe before?) and were up to and did?
The trade in cedar wood reminded me of the Cedar Forest spoken of in the Epic of Gilgamesh - wonder if there was a connection?
Yes. Gilgamesh went to that area on his journey. It's not like he went north or east.
Yeah I think that area of what's today Lebanon and western Syria were famous throughout antiquity for their cedar trees, and that's the same region that Gilgamesh is said to have journeyed to, basically what was in those days the end of the earth for people in ancient Mesopotamia. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it!
Same place King Ahab got the Cedar for building the Temple of Melqart in Tyre, otherwise known as the Temple of Solomon, or Mountain of the Moon, they also represent the Tree of life, the Zodiac of the Night Sky, brought back to life every Xmas by Nimrod, who promised to leave gifts 🎁 underneath, it is their pine cones that are featured in the ancient carvings of bird gods, the same ones worshipped by the Etruscans
@@uncannyvalley2350 Oh, that's interesting to hear they had pine cones. There are a few pine cones in ancient art and some fringe theorists say it's the pineal gland in those works of art. It makes more sense for it to be cedar cones like you describe but I just didn't know they had any such things otherwise.
@@bredmond812 no worries, Osiris/ Orion is the root of the Zodiac, the Tree of Knowledge, he appeared on the Fall equinox, September, the Egyptian, Jewish and Celtic New Year. If you're interested Ive done a video on it explaining the connections
i wonder who "the master of shipwrecks" was
I want to say it's the god Yam, who is associated with the sea and generally a destructive force, but I can't confirm this. I could see one of his titles though being "Master of Shipwrecks." Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Great video... The anecdotic text contents on clay tablets add life to a great presentation and illuatrate well the life conditions of the ruling classes. I really enjoyed!
Thanks my friend, glad you enjoyed this! I love reading those tablets... really humanizes some of the characters. More on the way, thanks again for watching and stay safe!
I know this is super late that I stumbled upon this but keep it going! Specifically the earliest human settlements fascinate me and this is totally in that wheelhouse
Right on. This is good content!
Thanks man, glad you liked it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Finally a video about Ugarit
Thanks, glad you're into the topic! I will do another one on religion in Ugarit because that's extremely fascinating and could be a separate topic on its own. Thanks for stopping by, appreciate it!
Another fantastic video. Thank you!
Thank you for watching!
I said “oh that’s so cool!” Out loud several times while watching this. Kudos
Awesome, this is an episode I was waiting for (though I voted for Kish AFAIR). Thank you for all the interesting information about the city, I didn't know its history was so deeply intertwined with Hittite empire and about all the political affairs in Ugaritian court.
Also that curse tablet was fascinating, especially recited by you. You would make a great Ugaritian exorcist 😀. As I mentioned on Patreon, the text is very similar in its content and style to Maqlu texts from Babylonia and it is interesting to compare them.
Thanks man, glad you liked this one. Don't worry, I'm going to make another poll for the next city - I think it was a close tie for second place between Kish and Uruk so let's see who will come out on top this time!
😂 I'd love to be an Ugaritian exorcist if the city was still around... but on that note, I do have some material somewhere on Maqlu texts that I'll try to find and put in a program. I have an outline for a giant video on daily life in ancient Mesopotamia and I could add a segment on Maqlu texts since I plan to cover witchcraft and related things there. I'll see what I can find. Thanks again for your insightful comments and all of your support, really appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy Great to hear. I love the topic of daily life very much. If you want to include segment on witchcraft and divination, I recommend series of texts called Udug Hul (literally Evil Demons). It deals with various incantation ashipu exorcist used before and during healing ceremony. They are mostly protective spells against all sorts of evil as well as invocations of Asalluhi and Ea - masters of exorcism and wisdom.
@@JustSpectre Yeah I've wanted to go over daily life for a while... most of the stuff I've done so far deals with political history, so social history is something I'm excited to delve further into. Thanks for suggestions, I'll check out the Udug Hul texts. I think I have excerpts from one of them because the name sounds familiar but I'll see if I can find more!
Cy, recommended your channel videos to another RUclips channel that reviews history video channels called vlogging through history. He’s does a great job and has a pretty big subscriber base and always recommends the channel if he reviews their video. Hope this will help your channel grow it is too good to not have more subscribers. Your videos are great especially your Bronze Age ones.
Hey, thanks so much for the recommendation, really appreciate it! I haven't seen that channel but I'll check it out. Glad that you're also enjoying the content, lots more on the Bronze Age to come, stay tuned and safe, and again, thanks for the support, really means a lot!
Awesome stuff, Cy! Well done!
Thanks man, appreciate it!
Excellent video. Just a notion but the stone engraving at 28:48 would make a great addition to your t-shirt line.
Thanks! Haha it's a really nice seal. Always wanted to add some Hittite merch to the store so this might be a good first design. Thanks again and stay tuned for more!
I am Assyrian must you video I love it part ate people all in are homeland thank you
Hell yeah awesome video, great way to start the day!
Great man, glad to be able to help kick off the day with some ancient history! Thanks for watching, really appreciate and hope you liked it... more on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Great work here and on your podcast. Keep it up
Thanks my friend, seriously, thrilled that you continue to enjoy these and it motivates me to put out more for you all. Thanks for the support and stay safe!
I aint never clicked on a vid so fast. I've been wanting to learn more about Ugarit every since I learned about the one tablet begging for help found from the Bronze Age Collapse.
Thanks! Yeah, same. I had read that last letter to the king of Cyprus years ago but didn't really know about the history of city as a whole until much later. More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I don’t usually comment as I am a lay student of history and not qualified for anything, but you have discovered of one of the earliest Karens ever documented!!!
🤣🤣🤣 perhaps, yes! Thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed those letters, they're always fun to read! Stay safe!
...Please revert to your former practice.
I was really intrigued by her story. I wish there was a way to know more…I’ll look around alittle but doubt there is much detail about her
Hahaha
Stop calling out Karens. Its old, its stupid and its misogynistic.
Love all your vids. Your passion comes through. From a fellow nerd
Thanks man, always great to meet fellow history nerds! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Your enthusiasm is obvious. My favorite is when you read translations as if you were the king who wrote it. You get so into it. Keep it up. Big fan.
@@jimmyjams9036 Thanks, means a lot that people like you enjoy this stuff. Haha in some videos I've been told I go overboard with reading the quotes so glad you like them! I love adding the primary sources though because I feel that it further humanizes the people we meet in these stories from history. Thanks again for the support, appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy Primary source quotes should always be used, if possible. With ancient history, much of what we "know" is an educated guess, at best, and we only know what we unearth and decipher. We can only go by what we find, even if it's biased.
As for the quotes, don't change. It's part of what makes your videos interesting. Passion. Thanks for taking the time to reply. It makes your channel that much cooler.
It never ceases to amaze me how you can keep saying Šuppiluliuma so often without stumbling.:)
Haha by now I've had some practice from saying the name in several past videos. Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I sure hope we find out one day what happened to Suppiluliuma II and his army and navy. Such a shame the Ugarit warriors weren't home to defend their city, sucks being a vassal.
I can’t wait for another Ugarit to be discovered, cities like this are out there. Just look at Gobekli Tepe, which has turned our ideas of early civilization upside down!
Same, I think that they'll probably discover a lot more new civilizations in parts of the world that archaeology has mostly neglected, for example, remote parts of South America or sub-Saharan Africa. About two decades ago they found the Jiroft Civilization which was pretty incredible.
Thanks for stopping by, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
I love this video, its nice to have people talk about lesser known peoples and mythologies. I would like to know about what music in this vid was used? I would love to listen to that also.
Thanks, glad you liked it! All of the music comes from the site Epidemic sound. It's a good site, check it out! Thanks again and stay safe!
Awesome man, I learned alot thank you so much
As Pagan Canaanite or Pagan Levantine i really appreciate your work here.
May He The Lord Baal Bless you Cy. 🙏🏼
I didn’t realise that any Pagan Canaanites still practiced. Excuse my ignorance. I’m Pagan but from the other side of the world to the Levant although I’ve visited there. It makes me so happy to know that there are still those who know the old gods and goddesses in that region. ✌️
@@buttercxpdraws8101 yep send me your email and ill fill you in. May Lord Baal Bless. Shalam Salamu
Are you an Alawite? I heard before that Alawites were originally Canaanite Pagans and incorporated Paganism into their religion
@علي ياسر yes I do. Lamb or goat or beef like calf young.
@علي ياسر really ? Lol where you get that Lies from the false god yahwhe or allah wants that.
Ugurat Palace archive, gnarly archaeological find.
Cy delivers! Never stop sir!
Of for sure, I can't stop... love ancient history, can't get enough of it and love sharing this stuff with all of you!
This is amazing! I do love your wonderful videos ☺️😘
Thank you! I wasn't sure if there was much interest in Ugarit so glad you enjoyed this! More ancient cities on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Its been ages since I watched one of your videos. This was great. Thanks. Hope you well.
Thanks my friend and glad you enjoyed this one! All is well over here and hope that things on your end are also great! More ancient cities on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Thank you very much for this video. It was ammazing, i just want to ask if there is a possibility to explain more about the historical achievemnets of ugarit people in the domain of littirature, music and other things which ugarit people were very advanced in. Thanks again for this nice video
Oedipus and Akhnaten is one of my favorite books, and your videos always make me think about Ages in Chaos. Please relate some modern findings to Velikovsky’s wonderful theories. Great work, as always
Thanks for the watching and the suggestion, appreciate them! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Good videos as always!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Ugarit and their religion is interesting.
Would like to see developments on the Iranian plateau Zagros Mtn sites, Elam, Jiroft, Helmand, S Turkmenistan/BMAC etc. Prehistory.
Bava !, greetings from India 🇮🇳
Hi thanks for stopping, all the way from India! Really appreciate it! All great topics. I had done some earlier videos on Elam and Jiroft and hope to do more some other content on the so-called Luristan bronzes and BMAC. These are plans for early 2022. Thanks for the suggestions, stay tuned and safe!
Just marvelous ❤❤❤
Nice one
Good luck
Thanks man, appreciate it! Also, new Elam content in the works, stay tuned!
Great video Cy
Thanks!
Wonderful video. Thank you :)
Thank you!
Ugarit was a hybrid. It used standard cuneiform but aimined for a sound based alphabet rather than symbol based. Definitely a key stage in the development of the written word.
Finally, this is one video I suggested some time ago
Hope it was worth the wait! Was a popular topic with patrons too so glad you all enjoyed it! More on the way, stay tuned!
Very cool. I thought it was interesting that Ugarit had a cuneiform alphabet, as I believe that the alphabet probably started in the Levant based on the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Do you reckon they might have gotten the idea from Ugarit?
Hi, thanks for watching and great question! Most believe that the predecessor to the Alphabet may have come from the Sinai, but was of Canaanite origin. After that, it was used and further developed in other Canaanite cities. So, it's likely that the idea for the alphabet was not from Ugarit itself, but my guess is that being such a cosmopolitan hub and so intertwined with Canaanite culture, scribes and traders in Ugarit must have learned about the alphabet from other Canaanites and developed one of their own based using cuneiform characters. Anyway, thanks for stopping by, I really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
11:19 I wonder what he means by “bread of fasting” and whether it is in any way related to Matzah, which is the thin bread associated with the passover holiday. It would be interesting but not surprising if such a bread has roots that go back to Ugarit.
Amazing video.
"Expert Lads" is my favorite translation of anything ever
Cy, thank you for your interesting document on Ugarit. But once more I just must make a tiny critique on names of cities: Antioch(eia on Orontes) was known by that name for 1000 years before being conquered by Ottomans in 1516 and even lately renamed to Antakya. So, I think it is appropriate to use the old name. In fact, you are doing the same in the case of Halab, better known as Aleppo, or Constantinople vs Istanbul. That the Turks renamed all the cities in Asia Minor even if they ruined them as if they have anything in common with their history, that was hundreds of years old even before the first Seljuk raiders appeared, it need not be the must for a historian.
As Palestinian I am so happy you are videoing my people the canaanites.
Canaan = phéniciens = black peuple
@@domyandersongarcia3248 what the fuck ?
@@domyandersongarcia3248 "= black people?" .......... ?
@@domyandersongarcia3248 you mean Canaan = Phoenicians =/= black people
But does = brown people tan people middle eastern people.
@@yaruqadishi8326 brown = black people. Canaan = nubiens and kemete ( l'Égypte antique)
But Cy, you didn't answer the most important question...
... did the farmer mentioned in the beginning of the video eventually manage to plow his field? 😬
I wondered what happened to him also!
Haha my guess is probably not since within the next couple of years the site was under excavation. I hope though that he at least got compensated for the treasures under his farm! Thanks for watching, really appreciate it! More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
The strangest thing is not the citys sacking but that it was not reinhabited afterwards. I mean the area was not depopulated enough to no have inhabited cities and towns throughout this chaotic period. I mean it would have to have been completely uninhabited for many years to become forgotten but the valuable location of the city would still be a valid place for a new city even if the old was fully forgotten.
Awsome job mister
Thank you!
WOW! WELL WHATTDOYAKNOW! YOUR PATERONS REALLY CHOSE GOOD! ATLEAST FOR THIS ONE THOUGH! 😄😀😀 NICE ONE CY THANKS FOR THE AWESOME EDUCATION !
Nicely done
Can you please create a video on IVC and its peoples and its language ?.
Great stuff
Can you do a video on Alalakh, Charchemish, Emar, Mukish and the Nuhashsh and how about Arwad, Qatna, Hamath, Simyra, Ardata, Batrun, Beirut, Damascus, and Akko
Can you do a video on the Ancient Indian cities of Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, Harappa, Mohenjodaro or Lothal?
What was considered as the resolution and survival of legal texts in the home of early civilization
So it looks like the bibliography isn't accessible anymore?
I like this channel
Good video, but the constant ad interruptions detract from it greatly - you should put the ads at the beginning and end only otherwise it diminishes your work
Hey thanks for stopping by and the comment, appreciate it! Actually YT places the comments, I just set the video for monetization. I'm not sure how their ad algorithm works because some people get few ads, others more. I'll look into this though... thanks again and stay safe!
The ugaritic abjad is actually a cuneiform representation of the phoenician abjad
If you compare the two you will see that they are actually the same
The ugaritic abjad has several augments or extra symbols for those ugaritic sounds not present in phoenician
Thanks for the info, appreciate it!
I have always wondered the relation between the Hittite people and the earlier people that built the big buildings in turkey. Gobekli Tepe
According to Wikipedia, Ahatmilku is the wife of king Niqmepa and mother of Ammittamru. She supported Ammittamru's succession to the theone after the death of her husband and also banished two of her sons. There is no mention of her banishment or execution because of some sin. Please clarify. Is the wikipedia wrong here? (I'm asking coz there are some misinfo in wikipedia)
This helps fill in some gaps in my assertion that Akhnaten's older brother, who would have been Thutmose V, was the real Moses of the bible, who engineered the fall of Egypt as the preeminent power of the Eastern Mediterranean, and fills in some important details about the Sea Peoples that were airbrushed from history and hid the deep ties between Ugarit and the homelands of that wave of ancient Vikings who carried a new form of polytheist christology back to sow the seeds of the post-Mosaic Abrahamic faiths.
Interesting knowledge that Mycenaean pottery was found at the site. The fact that such pottery was also found in sites of Philistia has given rise to the theory that Philistines were from the Aegean. No doubt the Philistines, like the people of Ugarit and others, were importing the ceramics and not making them.
An additional fact to mention is that Ugaritic texts present many literary and religious parallels to biblical texts and literature at that period of time.
I think Tyre, Sidon, Byblos etc survived because they had fleets which deterred the sea peoples
I think that may have been part of it, along with having more financial resources and autonomy to act on their own, vs Ugarit which was in my opinion too reliant on direction from the Hittite gov. Thanks for watching, appreciate it!
@@HistorywithCy I mean maybe? I didn’t think that the Phoenicians were great trade powers till after 900BC? I.e. after the Bronze Age collapse. Before that they would have been merely vassals of Egypt or the Hitties? No? I think Ugarit-Cyprus-Crete would have been the real trade powers at the period we’re discussing
@@chrisamon4551 Good points and I think you're correct. All of these coastal cities along with Cyprus and Crete were prosperous trade hubs, so I don't think that finances were an issue. Tyre, Sidon and Byblos were technically part of the Egyptian empire at the time (and had been for centuries), so though their trade policy may have been independent, they were still Egyptian protectorates. In my opinion, the Egyptian military was still much more powerful around 1200 BC than that of the waning Hittite Empire, and I think that Ugarit was ripe for the picking because the Hittites were bearing the brunt of sea people attacks and massive revolts in Anatolia and could not protect a distant outpost such as Ugarit. The people who attacked Ugarit probably knew this and decided to take the city rather than be paid off. With regard to the Canaanite cities further to the south, by then the Egyptian military would have been alerted and the pharaoh (in this case Ramesses III) was already preparing to encounter the Sea Peoples in battle (which he eventually did and claims to have defeated them). Groups of sea peoples probably just felt it would be easier to collect money and move on. That's my opinion at least...
Definitely a fun discussion, would be great to have a live stream on this. Thanks again for your comments, really appreciate them!
Cedars weren't just canaanites/levantine enjoyed material. The egyptians liked cedars as did the mesopotamians as well as the ancient arabians in saudi.
And also the later on hebrews too.
Any other bros love Ugarit? it was so cool
Definitely... sad the way the city ended. More on the way, stay tuned and safe!
Nice video , man !
Well, if they had a temple for Baal, I wonder if they noticed the Amazon, dual wielding frenzy Barbarian and The Necromancer with his minions going to the catacombs beneath it to level up and kill the boss for unique items :D:D:D:D:D:D:D