The Baal Cycle (the Ugaritic tablets)
← all texts · Canaanite & Phoenician · c. 14th–13th c. BCE; excavated at Ras Shamra from 1929
What this is
The mythology of Canaan in its own language, on clay, before anyone was editing it. Baal against Yamm the Sea and against Mot, Death; Anat's slaughter; El presiding as the aged father of the gods. It is the substrate the Hebrew Bible argues with — El, Elyon, Asherah and the rider of the clouds are all here first.
Highlighted names link to their entry in the encyclopedia.
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The gods & things in it
No figures catalogued in this text yet.
Companion reading path
What to read alongside it, and why.
The Phoenician History of Sanchuniathon (via Philo of Byblos)
Canaanite & Phoenician
The same pantheon a thousand years later, written by a Phoenician for Greek readers.