Overview
Ugarit was an ancient city located in present-day northern Syria, founded as early as 6000 BCE, with its apex occurring 1800 – 1200 BCE. An independent city ruled variously by the Egyptians, Amorites and Hittites (and probably others) the defining, and perhaps, crucial, aspect of the city was its seaport, which is known to have engaged in trade with Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine and others across the Mediterranean and Aegean.

Economy & Food Subsistence
Royal and administrative texts demonstrate this vast network and outline the types of goods (craft, textiles, and food) that were traded. The texts themselves have been found principally residing preserved in larger structures, indicating that they may have been stored in a repository or governmental building such as palace; this in turn seemingly demonstrates a political economy.

​Social Organization
Beyond religious figures, Ugarit was ruled by a series of six patrilineal kings, many of whom seem to have possessed a distinct political acumen – marrying women of foreign courts or nobility, enacting diplomatic treaties with neighboring groups and subjugating Ugarit at times to the level of a vassal in order to achieve more explicit economic gains. As a result of an often economic surplus, Ugarit seems to have been a somewhat luxurious and aesthetically-forward city, with large palaces centered around courtyards, ambitious domicile complexes and numerous stele and cultic/votive statuettes being found.  As a result of this trade, Ugarit contained a large and diverse merchant population that spoke various Semitic dialects and completed and recorded transactions in the indigenous Ugaritic dialect (a unique cuneiform alphabet consisting of thirty characters) as well as the lingua franca of the Late Bronze period, Akkadian.

Ideology
This combinatory system of economy and trade also brought with it a rich canon of mythology and religion that developed so deeply that researchers today often have trouble discerning between that which is story and that which is factual. Concerning religion, then, several religious complexes have been found during archaeological excavations of the city, the most important being dedicated to the god BʿL (transliterated: Baal). Built atop an acropolis, the Temple of Baal (the god of strength and fertility) likely performed a function complicit with a life/death ritual or belief.