Handbook of Ugaritic Studies.

• Author: Smith, Mark S.
• Position: Review

Handbook of Ugaritic Studies. Edited by W. G. E. WATSON and N. WYATT. Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. I.39. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1999. Pp. xiii + 892. HFI 396, $233.

This volume joins a growing number of valuable tools advancing the study of Ras Shamra and the various corpora which it has yielded since 1928. Although studies of the various languages and material remains have accumulated steadily for decades, the field has never witnessed a handbook approaching the magnitude of this volume. Over the 1990s the field has changed significantly. Three causes account for this. First, the field has begun to benefit from the discovery of approximately three hundred sixty new Ugaritic and Akkadian texts during the 1994 excavation season in the thirteenth-century house of Urtenu. This discovery has begun to fill in many lacunas in the historical and literary record. Second, the complexity of the site's remains and the variety of its languages are receiving greater recognition. Third, the site is increasingly situated by scholars in its second-millennium Levantine context. No longer is Ugaritic used primarily to illuminate the Bible. This change has taken place partially because of the discovery of other second-millennium Syrian sites such as Emar (Tell Meskene) over the last two decades. The study of Ugaritic involves scholars interested in Syria in its own right in addition to researchers engaged in biblical studies; the field benefits from a healthy interaction between both lines of investigation. These developments are largely reflected in this volume's many articles concerning the site, its archaeological remains and various corpora, as well as the history, economy, society, and religion of the Late Bronze Age city. The result is a massive and mature overview and assessment of the field with frequent references to the unpublished texts, little reference to the Bible, and some discussion of Ugarit's Syrian context (especially in the essays on political history and proper names).

The preface to the volume relates that the project endured a complex history. It is mentioned that the project changed editorial hands and that the team of the Mission de Ras Shamra withdrew. The editors found replacements, presumably in the areas of archaeology, epigraphy. and the material aspects of the site. For such subjects scholars working first-hand on the remains would have benefited the endeavor, yet even as it stands the volume represents an important landmark. The editor's general introduction briefly summarizes previous studies, considers current and future research, and closes with some comments about the volume. The sorts of studies mentioned involve a variety of genres, and generally the description of research, past, present, and future is too abbreviated. (The work of six scholars is mentioned under current research, and no secondary literature is cited under the nine lines of the section entitled "Future Research.") In fact, a great deal of work is presently underway. A fuller range will be covered in a survey of Ugaritic studies in the twentieth century that I am currently producing (to be completed in 2000).

In a chapter on the material remains of Ras Shamra, Minet el-Bheida, and Ras ibn Hani, A. H. W. Curtis briefly surveys past excavations and textual discoveries. Most major areas of excavation...