The Scribal Culture of Ugarit

Hawley, Robert; Pardee, Dennis; Roche-Hawley, Carole

doi:10.1515/janeh-2016-0011

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This situation, too, prefigures Iron Age developments in the history of writing and scholarship in the Eastern Mediterranean. (Hawley et al 2015, 236)…”

Section: Ugarit Akkadian and The ‘Vernacular Revolution’mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While there remains debate on the issue, and it cannot be proved conclusively, most Ugaritic scholars, including myself, now take a differing view, dating the Baʿal tablets, and Alphabetic Cuneiform in general, around a century later, to the second half of the thirteenth century, and thus the city's final decades (Bordreuil & Pardee 2009; Hawley et al 2015; Pardee 2007). At the centre of this re-dating is the scribe responsible for the Baʿal tablets, named in the colophon as ʾIlimilku the Šubbanite, pupil of ʾAttenu the Diviner and said to be working during the reign of King Niqmaddu.…”

Section: Ugarit Akkadian and The ‘Vernacular Revolution’mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Negotiating Imperialism and Resistance in Late Bronze Age Ugarit: The Rise of Alphabetic Cuneiform

Boyes

2018

CAJ

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Ugarit was a highly cosmopolitan, multilingual and multiscript city at the intersection of several major Late Bronze Age political and cultural spheres of influence. In the thirteenth centurybc, the city adopted a new alphabetic cuneiform writing system in the local language for certain uses alongside the Akkadian language, script and scribal practices that were standard throughout the Near East. Previous research has seen this as ‘vernacularization’, in response to the city's encounter with Mesopotamian culture. Recent improvements in our understanding of the date of Ugarit's adoption of alphabetic cuneiform render this unlikely, and this paper instead argues that we should see this vernacularization as part of Ugarit's negotiation of, and resistance to, their encounter with Hittite imperialism. Furthermore, it stands as a specific, Ugaritian, manifestation of similar trends apparent across a number of East Mediterranean societies in response to the economic and political globalism of Late Bronze Age élite culture. As such, these changes in Ugaritian scribal practice have implications for our wider understanding of the end of the Late Bronze Age.

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“…This situation, too, prefigures Iron Age developments in the history of writing and scholarship in the Eastern Mediterranean. (Hawley et al 2015, 236)…”

Section: Ugarit Akkadian and The ‘Vernacular Revolution’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ugarit Akkadian and The ‘Vernacular Revolution’mentioning

confidence: 99%