The Baal Myth from Ugarit

Author: Traditional Ugaritic

Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE

Country or Culture: Middle East

Genre: Myth

PLOT SUMMARY

The storm god Baal, known also as Ba’lu, Baal-Hadad (Haddu), or Baal Sapan, enjoys himself at a big banquet. Young deities offer him a giant goblet containing ten thousand pitchers’ worth of wine. In the meantime Anat (’Anatu), Baal’s sister and wife, slays humans along the coast. She attaches their severed heads to her chest and returns to the mansion of the gods, where she turns the furniture into warriors so that she can keep fighting. When she is finished, Anat washes herself with heavenly dew.

Baal sends messengers to Anat asking her to embrace peace, to oppose war, and to visit him so that he can give her a secret message. Worried, Anat puts on makeup of murex shells and visits Baal. He tells her that he still has no house of his own and must live in the mansion of Bull El (Bull Ilu), the father of the gods. Baal asks Anat to request his own home from Bull El. Anat agrees to ask Bull El, pledging to fight him if necessary.

Anat meets Bull El and finds out that he is afraid of the omen he has seen that shows Mot (Motu), the god of death, has called for Baal. When Bull El asks what Anat wants, she says that all gods must pay tribute to Baal. Bull El protests, along with the other gods. Bull El and his wife, Athirat (Athiratu), mother of the gods, entrust construction of Baal’s palace to the famous craftsman Kothar-wa-Hasis (Kothar-wa-Khasis). During construction, Athirat denounces Baal to Bull El. Athirat persuades Bull El to transfer power from Baal to his brother and enemy, Yamm (Yammu), the ruler of the sea.

At a banquet of the gods, Baal slays Yamm’s messengers who demand his submission. Baal is temporarily arrested. Yamm ejects Baal from his throne on Mount Sapan (Sapanu). Yamm is promised a mansion in the sea by Bull El. Astartē, another sister of Baal, threatens Yamm with a variety of afflictions including impotence.

Kothar-wa-Hasis gives Baal a double-headed ax with which Baal strikes Yamm, but Yamm remains unharmed. Kothar-wa-Hasis gives Baal a second ax. With this, Baal hits Yamm between the eyes. Astarte shames Baal into letting Yamm live, albeit as a prisoner of war.

Despite his reservations, Bull El commands Kothar-wa-Hasis to build Baal a new house, along with a bribe for Athirat. Baal and Anat visit Athirat, who thinks they have come to assassinate her. Instead, he and Anat give Athirat gifts and hold a banquet. They ask Athirat to ask Bull El to speed the building of Baal’s palace. At Bull El’s residence, Athirat praises Bull El’s wisdom and asks him to agree to Baal’s rulership, and he accepts.

Finally, Baal’s magnificent palace is ready. Baal celebrates and takes control over ninety human cities. His thunder makes the earth tremble.

Baal discovers invading messengers from Mot and invites Mot to a feast. Mot rejects angrily because he was not invited to Baal’s victory banquet. Mot threatens to eat Baal alive and burns fruits of the earth with his breath.

Baal tells Mot that he will submit to him. Baal has sexual intercourse with a heifer that gives birth to his twin. Baal dresses his twin in his royal robes and sends him to Mot. Mot eats the twin, thinking he is Baal. The other gods mourn Baal’s death.

Twice Anat meets Mot, who confesses that he ate Baal because he was hungry. Furious, Anat attacks Mot with a knife, a sieve, fire, and a grinding mill. She then asks Bull El to have a dream. Bull El dreams Baal is alive, and Anat is joyful, though she does not know where Baal is. A drought strikes the land. Appeased by a libation of wine from Anat, the sun goddess Shapshu looks for Baal.

Mot, remembering Anat’s attacks, agrees to allow Baal to return if he gives one of his sons to Mot in exchange for his freedom. Again, Baal tricks Mot, sending him Mot’s seven brothers. After a brief battle with Baal, Mot gives up and releases Baal.

Baal holds a feast with Anat and his friends. He sets out to battle sea monsters with Kothar-wa-Hasis.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Baal myth from Ugarit originates from an ancient people whose city of Ugarit was located in contemporary Syria. Ugarit may have been founded around 6000 BCE. The culture of Ugarit was at its height from about 1400 BCE until its total destruction in 1190 BCE. The Baal myth from Ugarit, known also as the Baal Cycle, was written down in the Ugaritic alphabet between 1400 and 1200 BCE. The surviving clay tablets containing the myth are from around 1250 BCE.

Ugarit was rediscovered by accident and excavated beginning in 1928 CE. Clay tablets containing the Baal myth were discovered in an ancient library at the site. Deciphering the Ugarit language enabled the Baal myth to be translated into English. By 2013, many scholarly translations of the myth existed. Among the foremost are the works of Johannes C. De Moor from 1987 and that of Mark Smith and Wayne Pitard from 2008.

The key significance of the Baal myth of Ugarit is the fact that the gods struggle ferociously among themselves and that this war deeply and negatively affects humanity. Baal, as storm god, irrigates the land with rain and thus functions as fertility god as well. He brings forth his doomed twin by copulating with a cow, indicating the vast extent of his powers of generation. His brother and archrival, Yamm, the god of the sea, threatens the land with floods. His second enemy, Mot, the god of death, brings death to humanity primarily through a prolonged drought. Baal’s sister and wife, Anat, represents war.

In this savage strife of the Ugaritic gods and goddesses, scholars have seen a reflection of the geographical, social, and political challenges of the city of Ugarit. In the second millennium BCE, Ugarit was a fortified port city in the Northern Levant. It had a fertile agricultural area and sat along the trade route to Mesopotamia. The conflict between the forces of the sea—namely, seafarers and fishers symbolized by Yamm—and the agricultural community represented by Baal is central to the myth.

The power of Mot signifies the Ugaritic awe of the forces of death. Awareness of the horrors of war threatening Ugaritic civilization is illustrated by the graphic descriptions of Anat’s slaughters. Anat’s joy of killing uncannily foreshadows Ugarit’s utter destruction in 1190 BCE, after which the city was abandoned forever.

Contemporary scholars have been very interested in tracing the spread of Baal across other ancient cultures of the Levant. Among the Phoenicians and the Canaanites, the word baal was used as a generic term for any powerful god. The Israelites came to violently oppose cults of Baal, who is often mentioned in the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible. Discovery of the Baal myth from Ugarit in 1928 invigorated biblical scholarship. It appears that the myth of Baal survived the fall of Ugarit in 1190 BCE through his many incarnations in other ancient religions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Caquot, André, and Maurice Sznycer. Ugaritic Religion. Leiden: Brill, 1980. Print.

De Moor, Johannes C. “Myth: Baal.” An Anthology of Religious Texts from Ugarit. Leiden: Brill, 1987. 1–100. Print.

Gibson, John C., and Godfrey Rolles Driver. Canaanite Myths and Legends. Edinburgh: Clark, 2004. Print.

Smith, Mark S., and Wayne T. Pitard. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Print.

Tugendhaft, Aaron. “Politics and Time in the Baal Cycle.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 12.2 (2012): 145–57. Print.

Wyatt, Nick. Religious Texts from Ugarit. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998. Print.