Literaturkontakte Ugarits: Wurzeln und Entfaltungen.

• Author: Beckman, Gary

Literaturkontakte Ugarits: Wurzeln und Entfaltungen. Internationale Tagung, Munster, 13.-15. Oktober 2015. Edited by INGO KOTTSIEPER and HANS NEUMANN. Kasion, vol. 5. Miinster: ZAPHON, 2021. Pp. 251, illus. [euro]69.

This collection consists of eleven papers--seven in English, the remainder in German--presented at a conference on Ugaritic literature and related topics in Miinster in 2015. Otto Kaiser ("Ras Schamra / Ugarit: Ein spatbronzezeitliches Konigreich als Schnittpunkt der ostmediterranen Kulturen") opens the volume with a general introduction to the site: its discovery, its archives, its political history as a vassal of the Hittites, and a sketch of the history of scholarship dealing with the city and its region.

Not surprisingly for a meeting focusing on Ugaritic literature, the topic receiving greatest attention is the body of mythological narratives preserved in the town's libraries, particularly those tablets known to scholars as the "Baal Cycle." Most intriguing is the contribution of Ingo Kottsieper ("El und das Alphabet: Erw Sgungen zum Einfluss des Siidens auf die Traditionen Ugarits"), who argues that the Baal narratives combine elements pertinent to Baal, the city-god of Ugarit, with an epic tradition centered upon the deity El, who was originally at home in the Lebanon. In his view, the tale of Dan-ilu is also of southern origin, arising in the Beqaa (p. 88), and the Kirta narrative as well--note that it takes only three days for the hero and his troops to reach Tyre and Sidon from his home in the unidentified city of hbr (p. 92). But the author cautions against drawing sweeping conclusions from his observations, asking to what extent the personages and religious concepts found in the preserved myths, which were written down by a small group of scribes--or perhaps even by a single man (Ilimilku)--reflect the religious conceptions of the general population of Ugarit (p. 101).

In a related essay, Noga Ayali-Darshan ("KTU 1.2 in Its Context and in Relation to Extra-Ugaritic Parallels: A Reevaluation") also sees the Baal Cycle as a composite text, harmonizing the traditions of the battle of the Storm-god and the Sea, so widespread among ancient West Semitic cultures (p. 45), with the theme of struggle for predominance in the pantheon as featured in the Hurro-Hittite Kumarbi complex (pp. 36-37). Furthermore, Susanne Gorke ("Elemente hethitischer und hurritischer Mythologie in Ugarit") identifies a number of central Anatolian...