On the coast of northern Syria, near present-day Latakia, stood the city of Ugarit in the second millennium BCE. Rediscovered from 1928 onwards at the site of Ras Shamra, it has yielded an extraordinary number of tablets, many written in an alphabetic cuneiform peculiar to the city. Alongside the great myths of Baal and Anat, these texts also preserve precious documents for understanding Canaanite magic, the religious world that forms the background to many pages of the Hebrew Bible.
A city of scribes
Ugarit was a cosmopolitan port, in contact with Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. Its scribes knew Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the age, but they also wrote in the local language, Ugaritic, a Northwest Semitic language related to Phoenician and Hebrew. The tablets come from palace archives, priests' libraries and private houses, and it is in the latter that many ritual texts are found.
The mare and the snake's venom
The most famous magical text from Ugarit is a long incantation against snakebite, often referred to by scholars as KTU 1.100. The story has a repetitive and solemn structure:
- A mare, presented as the daughter of the spring and the stone, turns to Shapash, the sun goddess.
- She asks her to carry a message to a series of deities, one after another, so that they will act against the venom.
- The message reaches various gods of the Ugaritic pantheon, each in his own abode.
- Finally the message reaches Horon, who performs the decisive act and removes the venom.
The text continues with a nuptial motif, linked to the gift of snakes as a bride-price. The repetition of the formulas, deity after deity, creates the effect of a litany: the ritual word travels through the cosmos until it finds the power able to heal the wound of the story.
Who was Horon
Horon is a Canaanite deity who rarely appears in the great myths but matters greatly in magic. At Ugarit he appears as a lord of spells and of powers against snakes and evils. His name is also known in Egypt, where in the New Kingdom, under the name Hauron, he was worshipped at Giza and associated with the Great Sphinx, identified with Harmakhis, a form of Horus, and it appears in Levantine place names, such as the biblical Beth-Horon, «house of Horon». He is an example of how a god of magic could travel from one culture to another.
The spell against the «devourers»
Another important Ugaritic text is an incantation against sorcery, often referred to as KTU 1.169. In it evil forces are driven out, vividly described as presences that torment and consume a young man. Baal, the storm god, is invoked to repel them, and formulas are used that recall Mesopotamian conjurations. The text shows that Ugarit had a magic of personal protection similar to that of the Babylonian āšipu, but expressed in the local language and with the local gods.
Diviners and clay models
Ugarit has also yielded clay models of livers and a model of a lung, some with inscriptions in Ugaritic. As in Mesopotamia, diviners examined the entrails of sacrificed animals and recorded the observed signs on the models. These objects show that the technique of hepatoscopy had reached the Levantine coast and was practised there in the local language too.
| Type of text | Content | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Snake incantation | the mare, Shapash, Horon | removing the venom |
| Spell against sorcery | Baal against the tormentors | personal protection |
| Liver and lung models | recorded signs | divination |
| Texts on the rapiʾūma | royal ancestors | cult of the dead |
The link with the Bible
The texts of Ugarit have transformed the study of the Hebrew Bible. Many images, divine names and poetic expressions in the Psalms and the Prophets find parallels in the Ugaritic myths. Even the practices that Israelite law would condemn, such as spell-casting, consulting the dead and divination, appear at Ugarit as a normal part of civic religion.
A symbolic reading
The incantation of the mare is a small cosmic drama: a message that knocks at every divine door until it finds the right power. From the perspective of the Hermetic Workshop it is an image of the quest: the word does not give up, it passes through the levels of the world and finally reaches the force that can turn venom into stillness.
In short
- Ugarit, rediscovered from 1928 at Ras Shamra, has yielded texts in its own alphabetic cuneiform.
- Its best-known incantation tells of a mare seeking help against a snake's venom.
- The god Horon performs the decisive act and is also known in Egypt and the Bible.
- Other texts drive out sorcery by invoking Baal and reveal a local protective magic.
- Liver and lung models attest hepatoscopy on the Levantine coast.
