Exam Number: 7996363 Supervisor: Dr.

Ulf-Dietrich Schoop Word Count: 12 500

The Lady of the House Speaking A study of the role of women in the social structure of Late Bronze Age Ugarit with particular reference to the Patrimonial Household Model Dissertation presented for the MA in Archaeology, March 2010 Archaeology School of History, Classics and Archaeology University of Edinburgh

Contents 1) Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2) History of Ugarit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Pre-history b) Early and Middle Bronze Ages c) The Late Bronze Age 3) The Late Bronze Age remains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Outside the city of Ugarit b) The Acropolis c) The Royal area d) Residential areas 4) Theory of Ugaritic Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Feudal models b) Marxist models c) Patrimonial models 5) Family households . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Structure and layout b) Tombs c) Crafting and Production d) Organisation by Women 31 22 15 4 5

6) Elite women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Ras Ibn Hani b) Correspondence c) Female authority in practice 7) Law. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Arranging marriage b) Womens wealth c) Transactions d) Women before the Law 8) Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a) Sexual development b) Wifely words c) Determinative progeneration 9) Conclusion and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tables Table 1 Chronological and Stratigraphic summary . . . Table 2 Ugaritic King List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Figures Figure 1 Map of the Kingdom of Ugarit . . . . . . . . . . . . Figure 2 Plan of the Late Bronze Age City of Ugarit . .

37

43

49

54

8 15

17 21

Figure 3 Plan of the Ville Sud at Ugarit . . . . . . . . . . . . Figure 4 Insula 6 of the Ville Sud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1) Introduction The social structure of Ugarit has been much debated and, with the city standing as the pre-eminent example of the states of the Late Bronze Levant, archaeological understanding of the conceptual framework under which the people of Ugarit functioned and the manner in which their society was organised is extremely important. If archaeological understanding of the culture of not only Ugarit, but the many other sites of which the archaeological understanding is based upon parallels to Ugarit, is to be furthered then the theoretical models of that culture must be developed. Though a number of theories describing Ugaritic society in emic and etic terms have been developed, they fundamentally derive from the traditional scholarship of the Ancient Near East in which the social position of women is largely under-explored. Feminist or womanist archaeology, originating in the work of scholars such as Gero, Conkey, Claassen and Joyce (Hays-Gilpin, K & Whitley, D. S., 1998, 5 - 7) has long sought to use archaeological evidence to interpret the position of women in ancient societies. More recently, Gender archaeology has begun the work of understanding how sex and gender existed in ancient societies and the manner in which they could or could not be applied to people, concepts, objects, spaces or actions (Srensen, M. L. S., 2000). This dissertation shall not be analysis the archaeological evidence associated with women from a strong Gender archaeological perspective. This is because not only is much of the data which would be necessary to do this unavailable, but the attempt is not to understand the emic conception of gender in Late Bronze Age Ugarit but is concerned with incorporating the actions, status and presence

of women into existing theoretical models. In doing so this dissertation is attempting to counter a problem which is particularly pronounced in the archaeology of the Near East, especially the Bronze Age, which is one of the last areas within archaeology wherein female archaeologists, feminist archaeology and gender theory have begun to make an impact (Bolger, D., 2008). Given this the considerable evidence regarding women in these societies has not been fully integrated into theoretical modelling. This dissertation attempts to integrate evidence from texts, archaeological, literary and linguistic, from architecture, economic archaeology and known dwellings and centres of activity. This evidence shall be tested against no only the PHM model but a number of theories in the hope that integrating the archaeology of women into the models shall further the evaluation of their applicability and also that these theories will aid in interpreting the archaeological evidence.

2) History of Ugarit The Late Bronze Age in Ugarit is the best understood period in that city's history; from the mid-16th to the end of the 13th centuries, much of which were a golden age for the city. Ugarit was an important centre in the growing and tightly woven network of international trade (Kurht, A., 1995, 300), a significant production economy in its own right (Kurht, A., 1995, 302) and a valuable piece in the diplomatic and military confrontations between Egypt, atti and Mittani (Astour, M. C., 1981, 8). The well preserved remains of the city have shown a vastly more comprehensive archaeological view of the society of the

Levant in the Bronze Age, particularly the Late Bronze period of the height of Ugarits civilisation, to archaeological investigation than was known before or could be known without the discoveries of Ugarit. Beyond the material archaeological remains, a large corpus of texts has been recovered from the remains of Ugarit which have revealed not only Ugaritic, a previously unknown language within the Northwest Semitic language family, native to the city but also a considerable number of texts in the other principal languages of the period including amongst others Hurrian, Akkadian and Egyptian (Craigie, P. C., 1983, 22). This mass of archaeological evidence has made Ugarit the model (Kurht, A., 1995, 300) for understanding the small states of the Levant during the Late Bronze Age. In order to understand the social structure of Ugarit, not only as it far as it can be seen to have functioned in practice in the archaeological record, but also in any emic contemporary conception, an accurate representation of the city and its history must, as far as is possible, be determined. Any understanding of a culture must place it in its historical context; this is particularly necessary in the case of Ugarit, existing as it did at a point of great cultural interchange and exchange. To understand Ugarit and its society, we must understand the city's relation to its neighbours, predecessors and successors. Though this discussion is focussed both on a specific time and place it is essential to understand the citys chronology and its geography. a) Prehistory Settlement in the region of Ugarit originated long before habitation of the tell of Ras Shamra; the oldest traces of human inhabitants of the region being a number of traces of Paleolithic settlement some seven

kilometres to the north of the city (Curtis, A., 1985, 34). Atop the tell the first signs of habitation are in the level V C, approximately dated to 7500 B.C. and corresponding to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and the spread of sedentarism in the Levant (Yon, M., 1997, 25). This level is comparatively unknown, the trenches investigating the area were too restricted in area to give a great deal of an data regarding the settlement (Schaeffer, C. 1962). The pottery Neolithic saw the emergence of new technologies in the region, most obviously ceramics, which at Ugarit consisted largely of sunbaked, white ware but also other advances such as the breeding of domestic animals and stone rectilinear house construction (Moore, A. M. T., 1978). The similarity of levels V B and V A of Ugarit and their finds, dated to this period and the 7th millennium B.C., to sites elsewhere in the Levant and the Syrian Interior has been argued to demonstrate the first emergence of a civilisation definable by its common traits over much of the Near-East (Yon, M., 1997, 25). Compared to the Neolithic at Ugarit the Chalcolithic period in the 6th millennium B.C., comprising level IV of the site, was dominated by Eastern influences and a diminishment of the size of the settlement (Schaeffer, C. 1962, 1939). The boundary between the Neolithic and Chalcolithic at Ugarit seems to have been a time of great troubles as the culture at Ugarit underwent a transformation as the site entered the Chalcolithic period. During the Early Chalcolithic period, painted pottery of the Hassunan and particularly of the Halafian cultures of Northern Mesopotamia is comparatively common. The Halafian culture, characterised most prominently by its painted, often polychromatic, pottery, is well attested at Ugarit for much of the 6th

Dates (approximate) Level 7 500 B.C. 7 000 B.C. 6 500 B.C. 6 000 B.C. 5 000 B.C. VC VB VA IV III C III B 3 000 B.C. 2 600 B.C. 2 300 B.C. 2 200 B.C. 2 000 B.C. 1 900 B.C. 1 750 B.C. 1 650 B.C. 1 600 B.C. 1 450 B.C. 1 365 B.C. 1 190 / 1 185 B.C. I1 I2 I3 II 1 II 2 II 3 III A 1 III A 2 III A 3

Period Pre-pottery Neolithic Pottery Neolithic

Chalcolithic, Halaf culture Ubaid culture

Early Bronze Age I Early Bronze Age II Early Bronze Age III Abandoned Middle Bronze Age I Middle Bronze Age II Middle Bronze Age III Possibly Abandoned Late Bronze Age I Late Bronze Age II Late Bronze Age III Destruction by the Sea Peoples

Table 1 Chronological and Stratigraphic summary of Ugarit.

millennium (Schaeffer, C. 1939). Though Halafian sites elsewhere have revealed non-tool useage of copper none has been securely located from this level at Ugarit. Amongst the other new technological and social developments included the breeding of small livestock such as sheep and goats, the diversification of architecture and the emergence of specialist craftsmen such as potters (Yon, M., 1997, 25). The late 6th and 5th millennia at Ugarit comprise levels III B and III C in which the sites remains are characteristic of the wider Ubaid culture originating from lower Mesopotamia and in which copper definitively appeared at Ugarit (Curtis, A., 1985, 41).

b) Early and Middle Bronze Ages The Early Bronze period at Ugarit comprised level III A of the tell when toward the end of the 4th millennium B.C. and following an abrupt break with the previous level III B, the site of Ugarit saw a great increase in the number of inhabitants. A new settlement emerged with distinctly urban characteristics such as alleys, large defensive structures and stone architecture replacing the formerly dominant unbaked brick construction. Many stone tools were also replaced with metal versions, both copper and bronze. This was connected to the rapid advances in metallurgy at the time seen from the use of metal in tools such as axes and needles, weapons such as spearheads and daggers and ornaments such as pins (Yon, M., 1997, 26). The Early Bronze pottery assemblages of level III A demonstrate techniques and styles related to contemporary sites in Cicilia, Northern Syria, Palestine and the Syrian interior regions such as the Amuq and the Orontes river valleys. The Early Bronze settlement at the site of Ugarit continued until, like almost all sites in the Levant, the site was suddenly abandoned at the end of the Early

Bronze Age for a length of time between one and two centuries around 2 200 B.C. (Yon, M., 1997, 28). Around 2000 B.C. the site was reinhabited by groups settling in Syria, such as the Amorites, who established a significant settlement, identified as level II, atop the mound. Though little is known of the first phase of the Middle Bronze city save its grand collective tombs, the second and third phases are known to have spread to encompass the entirety of the tell and to have been defended by a large wall (Singer, I., 1999, 609). Excavations have uncovered evidence of advanced metallurgy characterised by items such as ornaments, triangular daggers and socketed spearheads; moulds for all of which have been found at the site demonstrating local manufacture (Yon, M., 1997, 26). Amongst the other finds discovered in the stratum level II are a large number of Egyptian artefacts bearing hieroglyphs, gifts from Egyptian officials such as a Sphinx dedicated by Amenemhat and statues of Egyptian pharaohs including Amenemhat II and Sesostris II (Curtis, A., 1985, 38). Though many Egyptian artefacts have been found at Ugarit and Ugarit was certainly involved in commercial relations with Middle Kingdom Egypt there is little to suggest Egyptian hegemony over Ugarit. The first mention of the name Ugarit in letters from Hammurapi King of Yam ad to Zimri-Lim of Mari which were found in the Mari archives suggest that Ugarit conducted its relations with Mari in the Middle Bronze Age via the King of Yam ad (Astour, M. C., 1981, 8). This has been interpreted by many as describing Ugarit as a state allied with and in the outer periphery of the overlordship of the King of Yam ad at alab (Albright, W. F., 1940b, 26). The

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artefacts, architecture and politics of the period seem to demonstrate that Ugarit in the Middle Bronze period was a strong culture formed from a mixture of Levantine substrate and the culture of its new inhabitants and looked culturally, economically and politically far more to the Syrian interior than to Egypt (Schaeffer, C., 1939). c) Late Bronze Age Level I at Ugarit comprises the Late Bronze Age remains of Ugarit and the Middle Late Bronze Age transition at Ugarit remains relatively obscure and may have involved a brief abandonment of the site. Also comparatively obscure, the first phase of the Late Bronze saw a great development in architecture at Ugarit with the construction of the North Palace which was built at the beginning of this period and used prior to the Amarna period and the construction of the Late Bronze Royal Palace (Yon, M., 1997, 26). The Bronze Age at Ugarit was a period of continuing urbanisation, economic expansion, mercantile power and monumental construction. The high level of international communication taking place at Ugarit is epitomised by the ten combinations of language and script utilised in the texts so far discovered at Ugarit (Craigie, P. C., 1983, 22). The texts that have been discovered in the city are Ugarits greatest contribution to archaeology. They provide vast amounts of evidence regarding the religious, legal, linguistic, literary, economic and political background of the Levant. The material culture of the city, though augmented by a significant amount of wide ranging imports, was, throughout the Late Bronze Age, part of the Levantine corpus (Cornerlius, I., 1999, 586).

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The history of Ugarit during its golden age is intrinsically tied to that of its neighbours. In this period the Levant saw conflict between the large Imperial territorial states of Egypt, Mitanni and atti which dominated the small polities of the region such as Tunip, Qatna and Qidi (Astour, M. C., 1981, 9). These smaller cities at some times determined their own allegiance and at others were under direct influence by their more powerful neighbours. These small states served as proxies and allies in the conflicts of the superpowers of the period as they sought to dominate the region. This situation began in the late 16th century B.C. with the fall, due to conflicts between the rising powers of Mitanni and atti, of the Kingdom of Yam ad which was succeeded by the Alala centred Confederacy of Muki-Nuhae-Nii, a state in vassalage to Mitanni (Astour, M. C., 1981, 9). Though Mitannis power can be seen to extend far into the Southern Levant it also appears not to have crossed the Lebanon or Bargylus mountains; despite this and the comparative lack of Hurrian names at Ugarit, the city must have been closely aligned with Mitanni (Singer, I., 1999, 620). This can be seen from the geopolitics of the 15th century division of the Levant between Mitanni and Egypt which placed Ugarit firmly within Mitannis sphere of influence and also the considerable Hurrian cultural influence in areas such as religion and literature (Singer, I., 1999, 621). Texts found at Alala discussing extraditions and at Ugarit dealing with the expulsion of a thief further demonstrate Mitannian influence at Ugarit (RS 4.449) (Wiseman D. J., 1953, 32). In later times, under the reign of the earliest securely datable Ugaritic King, Ammittamru I (r. ? ca.1350), Ugarit is revealed by the Amarna letters to be closely allied to Egypt (EA 45, EA 46, EA 47 & EA 49)

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(Moran, W. L., 1992). Though a vassal state this relationship may not have been entirely one of subjugation; indeed based on the presence of scarabs commemorating an Egyptian royal marriage, Pharaonic cartouches on alabaster vases and depictions of Egyptian women found at Ugarit it has been suggested that one or more marriage alliances were conducted between Egypt and Ugarit before the latter firmly entered the Hittite political sphere (Singer, I., 1999, 627). This political shift took place in the reign of Niqmaddu II (r. ca. 1350 1315) and is generally, but not universally (Freu, J., 1992), conceived of as being connected to the growth of the Kingdom of Amurru. This can be seen from the accord between that realm and Ugarit recounted in the Amarna letters (EA 98), a treaty between the two realms (RS 19.068) and possibly supported by the controversial Generals Letter (RS 20.033). With the demise of Akhenaten and the internal troubles following the Amarna period Egypt would not project power into the Levant until the 19th Dynasty and never again over Ugarit. Though Ugarits relationship with its Hittite suzerains was not always positive, the city did remain self-governing, although bound by vassalage, and profited enormously from its position as the major centre of trade between Egypt and atti over the next two centuries. The citys demise was part of the greater Bronze Age Collapse and is conventionally dated to around 1190 B.C. It is almost certainly tied to the invasions of the Sea Peoples, a proposition supported by textual references at Ugarit to maritime raiders, of the Ugaritic armys deployment in the doomed effort to defend atti and the destruction of the fleet (Yon, M., 1997, 32). Following the violent razing of the

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Ruler Ammittamru I

Reign ? ca. 1350

Commentary Author of the earliest document emanating from Ugarit.

Niqmaddu II

ca. 1350 1315

Contemporary of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. Sides with the Hittites and enters their vassalage.

Ar-halba

ca. 1315 1313

Apparently rebelled against the Hittites.

Niqmepa

ca. 1313 1260

Installed by Murili II and remained loyal through the Egypto-Hittite conflicts leading to the Treaty of Kadesh.

Ammittamru II

ca. 1260 1235

Contemporary of almanassar I and Rameses II. Released from military duties by IniTeub of Carchemish.

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Ibrianu

ca. 1235 1225 / 1220

Strengthened relations with Carchemish and provided troops for the campaign against Assyria.

Niqmaddu III

ca. 1225 / 1220 1215

Contemporary and correspondant of Puduhepa and Tudhaliya IV.

Ammurapi

ca. 1215 1190 / 1185

Contemporary of TalmiTeub and Chancellor Bey of Egypt. Last King of Ugarit.

Table 2 Ugaritic Kinglist. city, the site was never resettled and bore only small installations at most. 3) The Late Bronze Age remains Since the discovery of Ugarit 1928 the site has been under almost constant excavation; first under Claude Schaeffer followed a series of shorter serving joint directors until Marguerite Yon became Director of the French mission with overall responsibility for the site in 1978. Though Mahmoud Mella az-Zrs accidental ploughing of a tomb at Minet el-Beida was not publicized, the discoveries were reported to M. Schoeffler, governor of the Alaouite State, based in Latakia and then to the Service des Antiquits en Syrie et au Liban (Craigie, P.

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C., 1983, 8). The director of the Service, Charles Virolleaud dispatched Lon Albanse to survey the site. Though this report was unfavourable, Virolleaud, largely on the strength of local legends and a strong knowledge of the topography of the region, authorised a more extensive mission in the spring of 1929 (Curtis, A., 1999, 6). Within three days, this mission, under Claude Schaeffer, had uncovered not only a complete ceramic table service but also statuettes of Resheph and Astarte and prompted him to radio news of his finds directly to Paris. After five weeks Schaeffer, on the suggestion of Rne Dussard, curator of Oriental antiquities at the Louvrem moved his excavations to the tell of Ras Shamra and dug directly into the Acropolis (Curtis, A., 1999, 8). Within days the first Ugaritic tablets had been found though, despite congratulations from Paris, little news of the discoveries entered the public arena. Virolleaud himself began the task of deciphering Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform; Hans Bauer at the University of Halle however made the greatest leaps in the decipherment of Ugaritic. Eventually, these two, in co-operation with douard Dhorme of the cole Biblique in Jerusalem, fully deciphered Ugaritic and, with the translation of the growing corpus, confirmed William Albrights 1931 suggestion in Archiv fr Orientforschung that the city at the tell of Ras Shamra was Ugarit (Craigie, P. C., 1983, 23). a) Outside the city of Ugarit Though the precise borders of the Kingdom of Ugarit remain unknown, the Kingdoms territory, though occasionally larger, certainly extended from the Jebel al-Aqra (Mount Sapan) in the North

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Fig. 1 Map of the Kingdom of Ugarit (From Schloen, J. D., 2001, 203).

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to Tell Sukas in the South. The Kingdom included the promontories of Ras al-Basit, Ras Ibn Hani and Latakia on its Western Mediterranean boundary and in the East reached to the wooded Jebel al-Ansariye mountains running parallel to the coast in the East (Heltzer, M., 1976, 2). Despite the names of the around 200 villages of the Kingdom of Ugarit being known, few of these small settlements have been located or sought and much less is known about the archaeology of the Kingdom of Ugarit outside than inside the capital (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 40). Two sites outside the city of Ugarit however have undergone excavation; the port towns of Minet el-Beida and Ras Ibn Hani. Minet el-Beida was the site of the initial discovery of archaeological remains associated with Ugarit in 1928 and was quickly proved not to be a necropolis but an important harbour with tombs below domestic floors (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 41). Ras Ibn Hani is a site 4.5 km to the Southwest of Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast. Favoured with two bays acting as harbours the settlement is know to have held a large number of distinct craft areas.The most interesting aspects of Ras Ibn Hani in respect to this discussion however are the two Late Bronze Age palaces located at the site; the larger of which, the Southern Palace, covered more than 5 000 m2 in a terraced construction and was purportedly constructed by a King of Ugarit (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998, 411). The smaller Northern Palace contained two archives, the most significant number of tablets found outside the capital, which showed it to be a residence of a Queen-Mother of Ugarit and included many imported items and texts of recording both private and administrative activites (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998, 412).

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b) The Acropolis Among the Late Bronze Age citys most prominent features was the Acropolis; this area of raised ground itself dominated by the Temple of Baal, a large building patterned similarly to other Semitic sanctuaries. The temple consisted of a large, walled temenos raised on a platform and containing an altar; this surrounding a raised rectilinear temple comprised of an inner sanctum and outer chamber entered via a monumental interior stairway. The other temple on the Acropolis, dedicated to Dagan, was of a similar construction and, like the temple of Baal, was identified by stele in the temenos dedicated to the god. Also found on the Acropolis, the remainder of which was largely residential construction, was an edifice known as the House of the Grand Priest or the Library (Curtis, A., 1999, 14 - 15). This structure, located between the two temples, was a large building of dressed stone based around a central courtyard and contained three groups of texts, largely stories of the gods and writing exercises which has led to the suggestion that it functioned as a temple library and possible scribal school in addition to its residential function (Curtis, A., 1999, 15). c) The Royal precinct The royal precinct of the city of Ugarit comprised an area in the west of the town of more than 10 000 m2 bounded and on all sides by continuous walls and defensive gates. By far the most significant structure within the area was the Royal Palace. The palace was connected to a number of other buildings such as the Arsenal, the Hurrian Temple, the Queen-Mothers residence and the Pillared Building, and at its largest was almost a hectare in size (Yon, M.,

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1997, 45). Built of cut stone, rubble, wood and terre pis it held more than ninety rooms, six large and several small courtyards, had at least a first storey and grew from a small two courtyard building to its enormous zenith from the 15th to 13th centuries (Schaeffer, C. 1962). Beyond the gardens, pools, throne room and tombs the Palace also held five archives, a kiln and numerous writing exercises, suggesting that it was a centre of administration and administrative training. Given this its phenomenal growth was likely connected more to the expansion of royal power and bureaucracy than the growth of the court. Famously described by the King of Byblos as a building of splendour only rivalled by the palace of Tyre (Curtis, A., 1985, 53), the Royal Palace of Ugarit was one of the most important discoveries made in the archaeology of the Levantine Bronze Age. d) Residential Areas Residential areas are found throughout Ugarit, including on the Acropolis and the extreme northern Lower City. The Northeast and West of the city were dominated by the Acropolis and the Palatial area respectively. The southern area of the city is, in comparison, largely comprised of parallel streets following the curves of the mound connected by small alleyways (Callot, O., 1994). Amongst these blocks a few exceptions such as the axial Main Street have been uncovered and some larger buildings such as the Rhyton Temple have been excavated but no distinct quarters have emerged in the principally studied areas of the South City, City Centre, South Centre and Main Street; in all these areas social classes appear to have been integrated (Curtis, A., 1985, 56). Blocks contained the large houses of the rich complete with archives detailing in many cases the class, ethnicity and profession of the inhabitants, such as

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Fig. 2 Plan of the Late Bronze Age city of Ugarit (From Schloen, J. D., 2001, 205). the Houses of Rapanu, the bronze armourer, the Literary Tablets or the Magician. These imposing dwellings were situated alongside the small, simple houses of the humble inhabitants of Ugarit and the workshops of urban craftsmen and artisans (Yon, M., 1997, 39). Additional temples or cult shrines were situated throughout the city, often incorporated directly into the blocks and commonly open directly to the street; beyond these structures religious activity is attested to in all domestic contexts and supported by a plethora of small idols and the practice of entombing the dead beneath the floor of a house (Marchegay, S., 2000, 208).

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4) Theory of Ugaritic Society The study of the structure of Ugaritic society has been for some a secondary aspect of the discoveries at the site which is better known publicly for its importance in Biblical studies. Despite this a number of different models have emerged, based frequently on the economic organisation of Ugaritic society; well known both from material and textual archaeological sources. These models propose etic and emic frameworks for understanding the society of Ugarit, few however discuss the role of women in Ugaritic society, most likely due to the significant separation of womens archaeology and the archaeology of the other in a wider context from the mainstream of excavators in the Levant (Bolger, D., 2008, 334). In order to meaningfully discuss the society of Ugarit women as social, economic and political actors must be incorporated into structural theories without being either ignored or theoretically ghettoised. a) Feudal models The oldest models of Ugaritic social structure attempted to a form a broad synthesis under a Feudalistic framework, borrowing heavily from a social model that existed only in certain parts of mediaeval Europe and in Japan. This was first espoused by the Rev. John Gray who, though primarily interested in literature and religion, also integrated economic and administrative records into his model of Ugaritic society (Gray, J., 1952b). Grays conclusions echoed both the state of archaeological theory and the limited knowledge of the time. Gray was also the first to make distinct comparisons to Iron Age Israelite social structure and use Biblical passages in understanding Ugarit (Gray, J., 1952b), a legacy which has influenced the study of

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Ugaritic society ever since. Gray interpreted the mythological texts of Ugarit as referring to a tribal society which existed prior to the IndoAryan incursions of the early second millennium which brought the mrynm chariot warriors and professional guilds as new social institutions, Indo-Aryan personal names and deities and new technologies (Gray, J., 1952b, 49 - 52). Administrative records relating to land grants and military assessment were seen as demonstrating the arrival of both Indo-Aryans and a hereditary society controlled by a military elite and supporting closed and selforganising professional groups. Though a limited amount of professional organisation appears to have existed at Ugarit, the remainder of this hypothesis cannot be confirmed evidentially (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 215). Feudalistic models of Ugaritic society continued throughout the middle of the 20th century. The French excavating teams principal work on the structure of Ugaritic society was based on the land grants found in the Royal Palace archives and comparisons with Old and Middle Babylonia. Georges Boyer argued that the texts form Ugarit demonstrated the presence of two different forms of feudalism at Ugarit which he termed fodalit foncire and fodalit de fonction ou personelle; the first a personal land grant in hereditary perpetuity in return for services rendered non-personally and the second a nonheritable grant in return for specialised labour from the grantee (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 45). To Boyer the shift of more and more land grants over time from fodalit de fonction ou personelle to fodalit foncire demonstrated the breakdown of the traditional feudal system at Ugarit and the collapse of royal authority.

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The first book attempting to model Ugaritic society was Anson Raineys doctoral dissertation in 1962, A Social Stratification of the Kingdom of Ugarit. Primarially a lexial discussion, little is directly said of Raineys conception of the social structure of Ugarit though it is generally perceived as being clear throughout his work (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 46 & Schloen, J. D., 2001, 218). Rainey has further elaborated on his theories over many years of continuing subsequent publications, proposing that the Kingdom of Ugarit formed part of the larger commercial and feudalistic system of the Hittite empire, from whence he argues the King of Ugarit received his sovereignty (Rainey, A. F., 1965b). In Raineys model, although significant amounts of land are given in feudal grants theoretical overall ownership of land remained with the King who intervened to grant and reclaim land in recompense for loyalty (RS 16.269), rebellion or to preserve familial lines (RS 15.89) (Rainey, A. F., 1965b, 115). More recently the prevalence of feudalism as a model of Ugaritic society has declined; the last major work to deliberately emplot feudal terminology being Gerald Millers 1980 dissertation, Studies in the Juridical Documents of Ugarit. This examination of Akkadian legal evidence argues that the role of the palace in economic life at Ugarit was comparatively less than had been argued withlarge patrimonial estates in the Kingdom outside the control of the King yet held in return for feudalistic, specified obligation to the crown (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 46). b) Marxist models One of the most important and long-lived schools of archaeological theory, Marxist archaeology has been engaged in providing models

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of ancient Near Eastern societies from at least the 1957 publication of Karl Wittfogels seminal Oriental Despotism: A Study in Total Power (Wittfogel, K. A., 1964), if not ever since the development by Karl Marx of the Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP) hypothesis. More important in relation to the study of Ugaritic society is the Two-sector model as proposed by Igor Diakonoff; this divides a society on the basis of land ownership. The Two-sectors into which the model divides society are; the free sector, communally governed, tax paying and related to the King as sovereign; and the royal or temple sector which was governed by elite authority, rent paying and interacted with the King as Proprietor granting land in return for service (Diakonoff, I. (ed.), 1981). Though the Two-sector model as promulgated by Diakonoff is closely related to the AMP it remains separated both for a number of theoretical reasons such as the distinction between rent and taxes and the political inheritance of Soviet academia. An attempted reviver of the AMP is Carlo Zaccagnini, who revised the model away from the rigid orthodoxy imposed upon it by Stalinism and used it to argue that a communally organised free sector of society persisted much longer in dry farming areas such as the Levant than in irrigated areas such as Mesopotamia and the Nile valley, in direct opposition to the revised AMP of Wittfogel (Zaccagnini, C., 1987, 53 & Wittfogel, K. A., 1964). Zaccagnini argues that five aspects determine an AMP model; ownership based upon an individuals membership in a community, a superior owner imposing upon the community from outside, the right of the superior owner over surplus production, self-sufficiency of primary and secondary production amongst these communities and a lack of urbanism in the free sector (Zaccagnini, C., 1987, 26 27).

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Blending both AMP and the Two-sector models into the Royal Service System has been the basis of the prolific works of Michael Heltzer. Arguing that at Ugarit, and across the wider Near East, there were two socio-economic sectors but that they both were dependents of the King. Echoing Gray, Helzter draws upon the KRT Epic and the invasions of the Indo-Aryans to provide evidence for the evolution of this system. In Heltzers argumentation this occurred spontaneously in reaction to the social changes these events wrought rather than by adoption or imposition (Heltzer, M., 1982). Also working with a modified version of the Two-sector system is the greatest of the many Italian scholars of Ugarit, Mario Liverani. Liverani divides the socio-economic structure of Ugarit into free and palatine sectors; the palatine sector being composed of farmstead (gt) workers who were deprived of families and devoted to specialised production (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 57). These workers, being replaced from the low surplus free sector and providing their surplus production directly to the palace, led, in Liveranis model, to a negative feedback loop which caused demographic collapse throughout Syria (Liverani, M., 1987). c) Patrimonial models The Patrimonial Household model, which has long been a significant force in the theoretical studies of the society and economy of the ancient world, is ultimately derived from the work of the brilliant German social theorist Max Weber who posited the Patrimonial house as an ideal type of social structure (Weber, M., 1968). A long history of pronounced use exists in Classicism, where scholars have argued that the major economic motivation of classical Greek and Roman society was the good management of patrimonial estates

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(McGeough, K. M., 2007, 72). In a near eastern context the Greek leitourgia has been compared to the Neo-Babylonian business families in his work on the difference between small domestic and large institutional households. Also important is the public private household division and differences in familial and household terminology in Mesopotamia discussed by Gelb (Gelb, I. J., 1967) and the investigation of the Ur III temple of Inanna at Nippur and the patrimonial power of families within the institution by Zettler (Zettler, R. L., 1991). The use of Patrimonialism as an important model for the understanding of the socio-economic structure of the Kingdom of Ugarit began with the gradual recognition by the excavating mission of the prominence of non-royal houses and families at the site. One of the first buildings, with its contents, to be seen in this manner was the structure formerly known as the Southern Palace, now known as the House of Yabninu. The re-evaluation of this site by JacquesClaude Courtois in 1990 looked at, amongst the other pieces of archaeological evidence uncovered at the building, the large number of texts discovered in the House of Yabninu. Courtois concluded that the principal inhabitant of the house was Yabninu, a member of Ugaritic society mentioned in texts from the Royal Palace active just prior to the fall of the Kingdom and that the House of Yabninu as an institution was involved in a wide variety of activities in the Kingdom, from administration in the eastern region of the Kingdom to the import of a plethora of goods, particularly metals or diplomatic missions (Courtois, J-C., 1990, 105 - 107, 114). Other large structures in the residential areas of Ugarit have also been reunderstood as the residences of powerful individuals and the focus of their households. One of the principal other examples is the House of

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Urtenu, initallly known as the bibliothque au sud de la ville, which was a centre of oragnised maritime trade and whose inhabitants were well connected to the royal family (Calvet, Y., 2000). The most wide ranging and influential recent study of Ugaritic society with a Patrimonialist model is David Schloens The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol, a monumental work derived from his 1995 doctoral thesis which attempts to provide a socio-economic model for the structure of all of the ancient Near Eastern world (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 1). Schloen posits a Patrimonial Household Model (PHM) derived from Webers oikos inspired patrimonial house ideal type (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 51). Schloen also bases his theorietical model heavily upon the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur, arguing that both the functionalist and positivist schools of archaeological inquiry are flawed but rejecting also the anti-positism and deconstructionism (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 30). The third major theoretical pillar to the PHM model as proposed by Schloen is his strong influenced by Eisenstats Axial Age and his subsequent treatment of the entirety of the Bronze Age as one historically coherent unit existing prior to the emergence of Weberian rationalism (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 353 355). Schloen argues that, though there are many implications of the PHM model, its applicability can be tested against archaeological data in two ways, through the homology or dichotomy of centre and periphery (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 317), which he argues in the case of Ugarit to be synonymous with the distinction, or lack thereof, between urban and rural sectors of society (Schloen, J. D., 2001 317), and also through examining the terms in which relationships were expressed, being patterned on the hierarchy of the household

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or based upon impersonal distinction between socio-economic groups comprising two or more economic sectors (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 256). In Schloens view the PHM model therefore depicts Ugaritic society as being comprised of a hierarchy of one conceptual socio-economy with minimal urban-rural distinction culminating in a powerful royal and based upon a strong and self-sufficient village economy. The evidence Schloen uses is both textural and material and is accompanied by a powerful argument for the full integration of textual with all archaeological evidence, based upon; "the principle of the linguisticality of human existence that underlies philosophical hermeneutics and the related tradition of interpretive social theory" (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 29). Schloens PHM model has been criticised from a number of different angles and with a variety of vehemence. Amongst the most damning criticism comes from Christopher Monroe who argues that Schloens data is outdated (Monroe, C. M., 2002, 904), his examples spurious or unrepresentative (Monroe, C. M., 2002, 904) and his understanding of Weber flawed (Monroe, C. M., 2002, 906). Though Monroes criticism is overly harsh; for example it has been pointed out that his criticism of Schloens use of Weber is unfair based upon Schloens elaboration of his own thoughts from the foundation of Weber and the inevitable internal inconsistencies within a corpus as large and dynamic as that of Weber; he also raises a major and frequent criticism of Schloen, that he overuses the PHM model (Monroe, C. M., 2002, 906). This criticism of Schloen is reflected in the less polemic commentary on his PHM model such as that of Anthony Frendo who praises Schloens ambition in producing a theory so comprehensive and wide

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ranging and, in Frendos view, largely supported by evidence (Frendo, A. J., 2003, 605) but questions whether in all cases enough is known to accurately apply the PHM model (Frendo, A. J., 2003, 605). Daniel Flemings balanced critique of Schloens PHM model applauds the coherency with which it presents an alternative to both true bureaucratic and Two-sector social models (Fleming, D. E., 2002, 74) whilst demonstrating situations in which the PHM does not serve as the most fitting model for social organisation such as the tribal organisation of Mari under Zimri-Lim where Schloens arguments fail to properly incorporate pastoralism (Fleming, D. E., 2002, 76) and the collective terminology employed in some ritual at Emar (Fleming, D. E., 2002, 77). The paired review of Elizabeth Stone and Barry Kemp identify several weaknesses in the PHM; in the former case the difficulties which are caused by attempts to impose the PHM too widely (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003, 121) and two suspect theoretical leaps of Schloens (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003, 123). Kemp however, though full of praise for the immensely erudite book (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003, 124), and the extent to which Schloens PHM model crystallises previously incipient but not fully realised ideas whilst arguing (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003, 124), with reference to his own field, Egypt, that the PHM model does not perhaps, yet, accurately portray the complexity of society in which multiple social structures may appear to the archaeologist to be operating, well illustrated through 19th century A.D. examples (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003 124 125), and the role of cultural typology in prompting debate (Stone, E. C., & Kemp, B. J., 2003, 127).

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5) Family households The investigation of domestic structures at Ugarit is of almost unparalleled import; food, shelter and companionship are the most basic requirements for life; the manner in which they are provided reveals an enormous amount about the fundamental structure of society and the role of men women and children within it (Hendon, J. A., 2006, 173). The familial household is also the basis of the economy in any model of Bronze Age society, whether controlled via feudal obligation based on obligations and land grants, bound to either royal service sector or part of a communally free village economy or owing patrimonial allegiance to their hierarchical superiors. Whilst the artefacts, features and architecture discovered in domestic contexts do not immediately reveal the emic understanding of property or a households situation in society and its relationships with others domestic archaeology does reflect the social understanding of the occupants and test the availability of physical property against that predicted by any theory. More than 6 hectares of the 22 hectares of tell Ras Shamra have been excavated, despite this however much remains unpublished and much of the missions history, particularly the era under the direction of Schaeffer was concerned principally with the architecture and the more immediately impressive artefacts. Whilst not a flawed approach, and despite the great work done in this regard by Margeurite Yon, the evidence for ordinary domestic residences remains less than that regarding other aspects of Ugarit. a) Structure and layout

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Each residence at Ugarit was not a freestanding structure but a component consisting of a number of interconnected rooms within a larger freestanding structure. These larger structures, insulae, were themselves determined in size and shape by the pattern of unplanned streets of the city (Yon, M., 1992, 20), and remained externally largely intact throughout the 300 years of Late Bronze Ugarit. The insulae were intensively remodelled internally as can be seen from situations such as the placement of a large storage jar into the ground before a blocked doorway. Yon uses this as part of her argument that the insula was an ideal house type later compromised by an influx of population into the capital at the end of the 13th century (Yon, M., 1992, 21). Though the presence of first, if not in some cases second floors, is almost certain given the thickness of the walls and staircases present (Callot, O., 1983, 22 26) the precise division of space above the ground floor is unknown. The notion of an ideal house type is supported by the relative uniformity amongst the excavated houses, though modified for scale and wealth, insulae, though not some individual houses, universally contain certain features such as a courtyard, well, tomb, storage and waste disposal puisard (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 329). Each of these houses appears, despite the division and constant alteration of its interior to provide space primarily for the food preparation and light activity (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 279); indeed the distribution of space insures that each dwelling was constructed to allow for the domestic needs of its inhabitants rather than around business or craft.

b) Tombs Of the known features of Ugaritic houses one of the most discussed

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Fig. 3 Plan of the Ville Sud at Ugarit (From Schloen, J. D., 2001, 321)

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and most important is the tombs found therein. The number of tombs found in any area is related proportionally to the density of settlement with a mere sixteen in the quartier residential, dominated by large houses, compared to thirty one in the ville basse (Marchegay, S., 2000, 208). Though no osteoarchaeological analysis of a complete tomb has been undertaken they appear to be familial tombs including both males and females. This is based not only on the correlations of houses to tombs but also the intimate connection that intramural burials gave was designed to preserve the continuity of the family. The accessibility of the tombs of smaller houses from outside (Marchegay, S., 2000, 209), allowing family members outside the home under which it was situated to access their ancestral dead suggests that there was a necessity for more people than the current inhabitants to gain access to a tomb and therefore that continuing connection of the dead and the living of a kin group. Many tombs were built beneath the largest subdivided dwelling of an insula, for example the cases of the Northern insula in the centre de la ville and insulae 6 and 13 of the ville sud (Yon, M., 1997, 88 & 104 106), a dwelling which may or may not share other facilities with its neighbours such as House B of the northern insula in the centre de la ville (Yon, M., 1997, 88). That the largest house, likely that of the highest status family within the insula, was also guardian of a kin groups dead suggests that a connection between authority and the ancestry existed in Ugaritic society. c) Crafting and production A principal debate regarding households in Ugarit regards the extent to which agriculture played a role in the everyday life and economy of an urban Ugaritic household. As discussed above, one of the key

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Fig. 4 Insula 6 of the Ville Sud (From Schloen, J. D., 2001, 322) aspects of the PHM model is the homology of urban and rural life in emic terms. The presence of stone built silos in a large number of houses alongside animal husbandry equipment and puisard pits for the creation of compost suggests that the inhabitants were involved with agriculture. Even more telling however is the presence of flint sickle blades recovered from the centre de la ville which, from merely six houses, constitute 70 80 complete blades with a silica sheen proving use in harvesting cereal crops (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 335).

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The presence of agriculturalists within an urban context is not unusual or unexpected, even specialised labourers in pre-modern contexts would contribute to supporting themselves with domestic agriculture and remains feasible around even large pre-modern urban centres (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 101 116). Agriculture as an ever-present occupation in the household requires a larger focus on domestic activities and places more importance upon them than a system of only redistribution of supplies. The other principal daily activity taking place within the domestic context was domestic production. The majority of the production in the home appears to have been focused upon the tools required in domestic life such as roof-tollers, grinding, pounding and other food preparation stone tools, knives, axes, spatulae, scissors and tools associated with spinning and textile production (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 286). The much discussed weights found in almost all Ugaritic homes, (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 286) need not demonstrate activity in commerce at all levels of Ugaritic society but merely the well attested phenomenon of the use of measurement in a domestic craft and cookery with a secondary function in the dispersing of commodities. Middle scale production requiring expensive equipment was potentially organised at the extended family or insula level; the evidence of the olive presses (Callot, O., 1987) and looms (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 287), suggest communal use. The PHM model is best supported by the division of domestic labour within extended family groups. d) Organisation by women

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Ugaritic houses show no evidence of workshops, with only the personal and valuable being stored domestically, demonstrated by the presence of metal moulds but not crucibles or scrag (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 286). The structure of domestic dwellings is clearly orientated around both the greater family unit, the living within an insula and the dead beneath it. These familial tombs are found beneath essentially private residences whose material cultural assemblages are dominated almost entirely by the tools of domestic activity. Architecturally storage, cookery and the light crafting of household items are predominant factors in design. Though the PHM appears to best model of the structure of insulae at Ugarit; individual houses are organised around the activities of the domestic arena which demands a reconception of power and prestige within the household unit (Srensen, M. L. S., 2006, 110). Power and prestige within an individual household are difficult to determine archaeologically, being based upon more than the control of material goods or labour (Hendon, J. A., 2006, 181); however, at Ugarit we may discern from the structure and finds within each home that women may have been dominant, though the extent that this could be translated into positions of power cannot be discovered from domestic evidence alone. 6) Elite women It is almost a truism that archaeologists, particularly in the Near East are attracted to elite, palatial and sacred contexts; there is therefore not only more data on the elite of the Late Bronze age, but it has been studied for longer and, due to the nature of the data presents a more complete picture of elite life than is available from more humble contexts. The PHM places elite households at or near the apex of the

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nested social hierarchy relating to their social superiors and inferiors in household terms. This is supported by much of the evidence from both Ugarit and its parallel societies; it has long been seen that class, heredity and occupation are potentially more important discriminatory factors than gender (Sinopoli, C. M., 2006, 684). Therefore, whilst examining the evidence of the elite, the principle of Patrimonial organisation within a society must be separated from a predisposition to predict the presence of a patriarchal society. Social organisation based upon the concept of the household does not necessarily presuppose a male dominance within the household or the inability of women to head a household. Though Schloen defines the conceptual underpinning of Ugaritic society as being the House of the Father, the theoretical role of women in the household and the realisation in actuality at Ugarit differ somewhat from this basis.

a) Ras Ibn Hani In 1975, two years after the discovery of a tomb on the peninsular of Ras Ibn Hani excavations began on the peninsula (Curtis, A., 1999, 22), these uncovered one of the most important sites to be found in the Kingdom of Ugarit. The site at Ras Ibn Hani, 4.5 km southwest of Ugarit and built around two natural harbours, must have been one of the principal ports of the Kingdom of Ugarit. As has been mentioned the most intriguing aspects of the site are the Southern and Northern Palaces. The Northern palace was identified by the translation of more than 130 Ugaritic and Akkadian texts found there, the largest discovery outside the city itself, as the Palace of at least one QueenMother of Ugarit (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998). Though the reconstruction of the palace is disputed (McClellan, T. L., 2001, 86) and the site was heavily robbed out for stones during the

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classical period leaving only the foundations remaining, there were certainly multiple stories in the complex ranging around at least one central courtyard (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998, 12). Within this sprawling edifice a number of specialised areas have been isolated; workshops in particular are clearly evident from the quantities of both materials and tools found, these include bone working, pottery and metallurgy amongst many other crafts required for the running of so large a household (Curtis, A., 1999, 24). In addition to the levels of production demonstrably present in the Northern Palace of Ras Ibn Hani raw material far in excess of what could be used on site was also found in storage, including large quantities of Corundum and more than 300 pieces of ivory inlay, 300 kg of tin and 500 kg of copper were located on site (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998). Ras Ibn Hani's natural position in maritime trade combined with the resources at the Northern Palace's disposal strongly points to the Queen-Mother in residence there being involved in commerce. A further item of support for this hypothesis is the presence at the Palace of the only known Ox-hide ingot mould beyond Cyprus (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998, 412). While the political relationship between Ugarit and Alaiya was undoubtedly complex, Ugarit was not tributary to Alaiya but certainly a major trading partner (RS 34.153, RS 18.042 & RS 18.113); the presence of such a mould at the Northern Palace of Ras Ibn Hani demonstrates the undeniable economic importance in the Kingdom of Ugarit of this household of the Queen-Mother. b) Correspondence

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Within the Palace were found three archives; these follow the pattern of those in the Royal Palace within the city of Ugarit, being divided thematically between public and private correspondence (Roche, C., 1999, 214). Though the importance of the content of these tablets in understanding the role of the Queen-Mothers at Ugarit cannot be understated the simple existence of such archives is also extremely illuminating. The archives at Ras Ibn Hani are organised in a manner similar to and upon topics paralleling the other well excavated archives found outside the Royal Palace such as those of the House of Yabninu and the House of Urtenu (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 246 260). This suggests that not only was the Queen-Mothers household at Ras Ibn Hani involved in the administration, mercantile economy and industry of Ugarit but that this was not distinct from the involvement of the household of any rich and powerful personage. The contents of the private archive at Ras Ibn Hani, allied with a number of other tablets related to the Queen-Mothers of Ugarit from other archives only strengthen the appearance that the QueenMother of Ugarit could, exercise patrimonial authority. These archives contain diplomatic correspondence with other Queens throughout the Near East and a number of rulers also (Nemet-Nejat, K. R., 1999, 151); this corresponds with evidence found outside Ugarit which demonstrates the reach of the Queen-Mothers correspondance (EA 48) (Moran, W. L., 1992). The matters discussed are largely economic, such as those recording the receipt of large quantities of goods (RS 16.146 & RS 16.161) and the inventory of items shipped by a governor to the Queen-Mother (RS 94.2479), and political, as shown by the letters between Kilae of Carchemish to the Queen-Mother of Ugarit (RS 32.204 & RS 34.145) (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 333). Given that the Queen-Mother's

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household was a significant economic entity and that the King, as attested from numerous records (RS 15.062) (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 214 215), acted as both a backer of commercial expeditions and a monarch, often recruiting merchants as diplomats (Kurht, A., 1995, 314) we should not see the two areas as being distinct but the actions of the head of a household extending its power. The identity of the corresponding Queen-Mother is difficult to identity given the comparatively poor state of preservation at the Ras Ibn Hani archives and the addressing of the tablets to, 'The Queen of the Land of Ugarit'. That the Queen-Mother is never identified by any of the linguistic formulae translating as 'wife of . . .' is particularly revealing (Roche, C., 1999, 208), suggesting that she headed her own household, relating to the king as any other. That the Queen-Mother's household was a fully competent, and indeed powerful, economic actor in Late Bronze Age Ugarit can also be seen from the presence in the archives of the Queen-Mother of records referring to bn mlkt, 'Men of the Queen' (Rowe, I. M., 2002, 8). This formula, better known from the bn mlk, 'King's Men', has a debated meaning; theories include identification of those economically dependent upon a household, such as Mario Liverani (Rowe, I. M., 2002, 3), or that it is the Ugaritic term for the widespread contemporary institution of 'debt slavery' (Rowe, I. M., 2002, 17). In relation to the Queen-Mother's household the existence of individuals 'bound' to the Queen-Mother, whose comparative scarcity is explained by the smaller textual samples, demonstrates her ability to head a household conceived of and organised on patrimonial terms. c) Female authority in practice

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Whilst the proximity to power inherent in the position of a consort has led to many powerful women in history, the household in the Northern Palace at Ras Ibn Hani is clearly a large household run under the authority of a female figure. Given the weight of evidence in favour of the PHM model of understanding Ugaritic society it must be examined in that light. Though the Northern Palace may have been a part of the Royal Patrimony its lifespan was some two or three generations (Curtis, A., 1999, 25) at the most likely prediction. This is not indisputable as many have suggested that the Palace underwent an alternation in function during its lifespan (McClellan, T. L., 2001, 87). However the data leading to this conclusion regarding artefact distribution and the proximity of workshops and the throne room is, based on comparisons to the Palaces in the city of Ugarit, likely misinterpreted, with many confusions due to second storey collapse and the mislabelling of a room designed to control the flow of people within the building as a throne chamber (Bouni, A., Lagarce, . & Lagarce, J., 1998 & McClellan, T. L., 2001, 87). If the Northern Palace was used in a palatial context for more than an individual lifetime, it suggests that it was not administered on behalf of the King by one Queen-Mother in particular but was an inherited patrimony of the Royal women of Ugarit. Even supposing that the Palace was granted to a specific Queen-Mother it functioned in a manner clearly comparable to the other grand households known from Ugarit. The lack of any special references to the necessity of functioning under female authority and the absence of references to the King or derivations of power hence demonstrates that, even if female patrimony was unusual, the emic understanding of Ugaritic society was not antithetical to it.

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7) Law Though no legal code has yet been found at Ugarit which might be compared to the codes of Hammurabi, Lipit-Ishtar or the kingdom of Eshunna; however a significant number of legal texts have been discovered. The body of legal texts can be broken into roughly three categories; those acts performed before private witnesses, those witnessed by the King and Royal decrees. The lack of a promulgated legal code does not necessarily represent the lack of law as understood in the modern sense at Ugarit, particularly in regard to the position of women; as pointed out by van Selms (van Selms, A., 1954, 12) law exists outside and before state regulation and the most common cause of the promulgation of a written code is great legal changes. Additionally the use of the terms dq and yr in texts describing wives and marriages clearly demonstrate thee concept of rightness or legality (van Selms, A., 1954, 12). That almost all known legal texts from Ugarit are written in Akkadian is also unsurprising and, given Akkadians pre-eminent position as the language of law, demonstrates an awareness of law and the comparable systems of law around the Near East. Those legal texts uncovered, alongside a number of administrative and literary texts revealing the practice and ideals of the law together provide for a preliminary understanding of the legal system of Ugarit. a) Arranging Marriage Marriage at Ugarit was, in accordance with other societies throughout the ancient Near East, seen as a contract intended to produce

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legitimate heirs (Vita, J-P., 1999, 475), with the institution of marriage not a concept reflected in Ugaritic language (van Selms, A., 1954, 13). Deductions about the state of matrimony at Ugarit may only be made from the evidence of specific cases as presented in the surviving texts. This evidence presents one of the fundamental questions in examining any ancient society largely through its texts; that the world of the myth accurately reflects life as known to the people of Ugarit. This can be based upon the shared terminology of the texts such as the use of the term p t in letters, the KRT texts and lists of household statistics (van Selms, A., 1954, 11). This combined with the success this technique has had in use relating to other literatures (van Selms, A., 1954, 11) allows the reasonable presumption that the authors of myth cycles worked with material derived from their own experience. From texts relating to betrothals it appears that both exogamy and endogamy practised at Ugarit (Marsman, H. J., 2003), and that choice of a wife was not free to the bridegroom (van Selms, A., 1954, 15). In the story of Yr upon the advice of an oracle (CAT 1.24, 17 19), representing his divine parent, Yr uses a matchmaker as an intermediary for the negotiations with prospective brides guardians (CAT 1.24, 33 - 37) (Parker, S. B. (ed.), 1997). The key element of this story, supported by the records of individual marriages at Ugarit, is that the heads of the households of the bridegroom and bride are responsible for conducting the negotiations connected to potential nuptials (van Selms, A., 1954, 25 - 35). The Ugaritic system of marriage appears to be explicable only by the PHM model; women moved between households in marriages,

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focussing on the continuance of lineage, which were negotiated by the elders of the household. Though Ugarit is self-evidently not matriarchal and, as Schloens magisterial study demonstrates, statistical evidence points towards the prevalence of agnatic marriage and of patrilocal residence (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 108 116 & 328); these must not be conflated with patriarchy, within their new family women could often exercise patrimonial authority. b) Womens wealth The ter atu is one of the most intriguing aspects of Ugaritic legal culture, particularly relating to marriage. Vastly different from its counterparts elsewhere in the Near East, at Ugarit, the ter atu was a portion of the brides family patrimony taken with her and remaining in her possession in order to provide her with financial security in her marriage. Though the ter atu could be used by the bridegroom this was only in usufruct ((van Selms, A., 1954, 32). This possession remained inalienable from a wife and may well have formed the basis of the households of women who are recorded as dealing in property and goods. The ter atus other use related to cases of divorce or untimely widowhood (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 111). Widowhood appears to have been a particularly dreaded condition at Ugarit, with frequent exhortations upon the King to uphold the rights of widows as being one the prime duties of a just ruler (RS 16.144) (Fensham, F. C., 1962, 129). This demonstrates that not only was the protection of womens authority within the patrimonial system a royal necessity, but that Ugaritic society traditionally viewed widows as having certain

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important rights and that they were increasingly being violated. Many inheritance texts deal prominently with provision for a widow following her husbands death, including texts which appoint a widow as sole heir to the patrimony of the deceased with the right to choose from her children as her heir (RS 8.145) (Vita, J-P., 1999, 481). Adoption to provide for financial security (RS 16.200), the maintenance of patrimony (RS 16.295) or both (RS 17.021 & 17.033) was also a significant phenomenon linked to widows at Ugarit (Vita, J-P., 1999, 479). That widows required support following the death of their husband is not remarkable, that they had the power to adopt new members into the family demonstrates that they held, in many cases, not only the power but also the duty to preserve their deceased husbands patrimony. Divorce law at Ugarit is not well understood and few cases of divorce are recorded barring the unusual case of King Ammittamru II which, even though complicated by accusations of a Great Sin (RS 16.249), still allows, in principle, the Queen to retain the goods she brought to the marriage (RS 17.159) (Vita, J-P., 1999, 478). That women could retain inalienable property after entering into marriage need not be thought of as a flaw in the model. In a society seen as a series of nested households and patrimonies, a womans personal property may be conceptualised as a sub-household, remain hers whilst shared into the household patrimony or be used to establish two separate households. The conceptual underpinning of this can be seen in the relationship of the divine couple El, the supreme god, and Atiratu, his wife who managed a separate household and was treated as befitted a powerful independent personage (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 353 355). Atiratus titles and bearing denote both a Queen and a Queen-Mother which may

46

account for the manner in which she is both married to El and manages her own household (Wyatt, N., 1999, 544); Atiratu embodying two different positions or phases in a womans life, both wife and dowager, which are discussed below. The relative prevalence of records of widows coming into possession of the familial patrimony is comparatively remarkable. Though the potential of returning to their original family is known (RS 15.092) is appears most, particularly those with children, remained with their marital families. c) Transactions Transactions of immovable and moveable goods form the largest body of the legal texts recovered from Ugarit; these texts have been found in across the city, including the private archives of the wealthy and powerful and the Queens dossier (RS 17086, RS 17.102 & RS 17.325) (Vita, J-P., 1999, 469). Many of these documents demonstrate that women clear had access to some degree of action and social initiative. Women could buy, own and sell land and immovable goods; with men and in the example of Raapabu and Pidda (RS 17.149), with both men and women as seen in the case of Laeya, Addumilam and Bat idqi (RS 16.261) and also alone in their own right (RS 16.154, RS 16.135, RS 16.343, RS 16.131 & RS 16.253) (Heltzer, M., 1984, 174 175). It is notable that in many of these cases women appear to be the dominant actor in the transaction. Land has been repeatedly conceptualised not only as the basis of the economy but also the patrimony of the family, and was both a reward given for, and the cause of obligation to, perform royal service (Heltzer, M., 1999, 430). In a feudalistic interpretation of

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Ugaritic society landholding and the bonds of service attached to it are the structural basis of society; similarly of the palatial sector in a Two-sector or AMP model, neither of which accommodate well female landholding. The PHM however, if allowing women to hold the patrimonial authority of their household does not differentiate between them. The demonstrable ability of women to own and use land, and the recording of this without special comment or dispensation in the legal record, is remarkable in a society heavily integrated into a region that has commonly been modelled as patriarchal. Additionally to this, the legal record of the land sale involving Raapabu and Pidda is of particular interest (RS 17.149) (Heltzer, M., 1976, 100 - 101). This tablet, recording a land transaction in the standard format, also refers to the motivation of Raapabu and Pidda in buying this particular piece of land. The tablet records that Yzalda, father of Pidda, formerly owned the land and that it is now returning to her and her sons (Heltzer, M., 1984, 175). Though it is possible that this was simply a literary flourish on behalf of a scribe this seems unlikely given the standardisation of legal formulae at Ugarit (Rowe, I. M., 1999, 400 - 401); therefore the insertion likely has a special meaning, Heltzer proposes a situation in which Yzalda was forced to sell his land and in which Pidda, as his legal heir gained an inherited preferential right to buy it in order to maintain the land ownership of their rural community (Heltzer, M., 1976, 101). Whilst this is plausible, the circumstances in which the land left the patrimony of Piddas family are comparatively unimportant and there is no evidence to suggest that land was held in common rather than in patrimonies; the case demonstrating a female inheritance of

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obligation and intangible patrimonial capitol is extraordinarily interesting.

d) Women before the Law Society at Ugarit preferentially favoured men in control of the familial patrimony. The family household made up the smallest unit of a society which possessed no sense of feminism as it is understood in the modern world. Despite this however, there is little evidence for legal proscriptions against women who appear to have been able to act freely under the law. That the number of women referenced in the legal texts is smaller than their male counterparts suggests that a level of male dominance was establishing itself in society at Ugarit and replacing older traditions reflected in the law. Though it remains to be explained how this male dominance became established; textual sources, both legal and mythological demonstrate that Women could and did gain, inherit and exercise authority based upon their place in a patrimonial system.

8) Language In the effort to understand a culture and its organisation the manner in which the people of that society are described is one of the most useful elements in the effort to ascertain contemporary conceptions of individuals. The decipherment of the Ugaritic language, pioneered by Claude Virolleaud, brought the possibility of translating the extensive corpus of Ugaritic literature, texts relating to almost all aspects of everyday life at Ugarit. While the content of these texts and the locations of their discovery are both extremely revealing, these are discussed both above and below, equally interesting is the

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choice of words and their contexts in the alphabetic and syllabic cuneiform texts. In relation to the position of women within Ugaritic society there are a large number of words specifically relating to the status, socially and legally, of women at Ugarit. The evidence that there are cases in which women could hold and exercise patrimonial authority may be clarified by the examination of the sociolinguistics of Ugaritic. Given the strength of the PHM model and the number of women demonstrably exercising patrimonial authority, the answers to the questions regarding the exact circumstances in which this occurred may lie in the categorisations of men and women in Ugaritic language. a) Sexual development The Ugaritic language contains a number of words describing females during different phases of their lives; these can be compared to those detailing the development of males in order to discern the sociolinguistic implications of the Ugaritic language. Among the most important words relating to children are bt and bn; translated as daughter and son respectively and common to all West-Semitic languages (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 102). These can both be used not only to refer to the relationship between parents and offspring but also metaphorical relationships. The feminine bt, plural bnt, can be seen in the Aqht narrative where some moon goddesses are described as bnt hll, paralleling the Ugaritic phrase bn il, 'sons of El' meaning 'Gods' (Gray, J., 1957, 178). Another example of figurative descent is as a descriptor of citizenship. A contract involving a woman, Snt, describes her as bt Ugrt, a 'daughter of Ugarit' (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 102). By comparison with other texts, in which the entire male and female populations of the city of Ugarit are

50

referred to as b!n Ugrt and bt Ugrt respectivly (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 102), it is seen that Snt was a full ciziten of Ugarit. Many words relating to specific phases of life reveal the divisions of life and how the people of Late Bronze Age Ugarit conceptualised women's experience of life. P t and lmt, the feminine of p y and lm, are used throughout administrative and literary texts to describe females (KRT Tablet 2, III, 7 12, KRT Tablet 1, IV, 42) (Parker, S. B. (ed.), 1997). The exact differences between these two words, both translated as 'girl', are disputed; van Selms argues that the distinction relates to freedom with the p t being free and lmt potentially a slave (van Selms, A., 1954, 107 109). Textual sources do not entirely support this interpretation given that no direct connections to liberty are made in the texts which use these words. Etymological comparison with the arabic root lm meaning to be lustful or to be sexually mature suggests that the difference may be physical rather than social (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 103). The use of both att, 'wife', to describe lmt and

ry in the KRT epic as a lmt demonstrates lmt,

that the purely social distinction of marriage may overlap with

quite possibly similar to the hebrew alm(h), 'marriageable girl, young women (until the birth of her first child) (Koehler, L., 1958, 709). Though when referring to the children strong parallels can be seen; the interpretation of the words categorising adolescent and older females in Ugaritic differs interestingly from those established for males, zr and bn, which are best translated as youth and son (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 324). Describing males, evidence suggests that the once reaching adolescence males are classed based on

51

whether they are married or not, unlike females who remain lmt until they have fully 'matured' by becoming mothers.

b) Wifely words As described above both males and females are at least partially defined based upon their sexual maturity; the numerous words in Ugaritic administrative texts translatable as 'wife' complicate understanding of female sociolinguistics in Late Bronze Age Ugarit. The universally used word used to denote a wife is att, however att adrt, lmt and mar tu are all also attested in the Ugaritic corpus (Muntingh, L. M., 1967, 107). The precise meanings of these words is heavily disputed, most particularly the frequently occurring att adrt. Etymologically adrt is related to adr, 'mighty' and has been suggested by van Selms and Rainey as meaning, in conjunction with att, a 'noble wife' (Rainey, A. F., 1965a, 11 & van Selms, A., 1954, 58). Perhaps better translated as pre-eminent, the nature of the att adrt has led scholars to promulgate theories regarding the transmitability of social status and extent of concubinage and polygamy at Ugarit but may, most revealingly signify a women of maturity within a household (McGeough, K. M., 2007, 98). The text in which the majority of the instances of att adrt occur is a census of Alaiyan households, identified patrimonially, in Ugarit (RS 11.857). Given this even though the exact meaning of att adrt is unknown it can be seen that not only were households identified by patrimonially but, even if the individuals being identified were foreign, the authorities of Ugarit differentiated in status amongst women, hence accepting that women could acquire or alter status.

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Another particularly useful example for examining the status of women via the sociolinguistics relating to wives in Ugaritic is the royal household. Within the royal household it is known that marriage to the king did not render the title 'Queen' but only 'Wife of [the King]'; in comparison however the designation of a royal spouse as the mother of the trynn, 'crown prince', brought the title rbt, 'great woman' (Nemet-Nejat, K. R., 1999, 149). It was only once a royal spouse' son became King himself that she would ascend to the powerful position of the 'Queen Mother' (Nemet-Nejat, K. R., 1999, 149). This position, as highlighted above, brought control of an important economic entity in the form of the Queen Mother's household and considerable diplomatic and political power. Though the influence a mother wields over a child should not be underestimated, that this procedure is reflected not only in custom but also in honourifics and linguistics suggests that the assumption of greater power and influence by the mothers of heirs and Kings at Ugarit was not political but reflected a conception that a women's personal development was furthered by bearing children and completed by overseeing their survival and inheritance. c) Determinative progeneration There are many sociolinguistic revelations related to Ugaritic, in regard to women and the PHM model, the demonstration that the an individuals' sexual lifecycle appears to be intimately connected to the descriptors applicable to that individual is of great importance. The central element of the oikos which forms the household at the heart of any Patrimonial society is managed to ensure its existence and inheritance by the next generation. The production of the next generation is essential to such societies; infertility, as evidence by

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the KRT epic, was considered a curse (Parker, S. B. (ed.), 1997). As can also be seen through the descriptions of the creation of the world and the divinities, particularly El, Producer of Progeny and the deity responsible for helping Daniel impregnate his wife, power was connected strongly with sexual potency (Schloen, J. D., 2001, 352). This religious structure, combined with an understanding of biology largely ignorant of male infertility and the self-evident mature of male sexual development in puberty created a culture in which women were only fully mature after having become mothers. 9) Conclusion and Implications The Patrimonial Household Model of Ugarit is not without flaws, it clearly expresses an idealised conception of Ugaritic society and there are a number of facets of that society which it does not incorporate. Despite these flaws the PHM model, when tested against the archaeological evidence, both material and literary, predicts, incorporates and explains phenomena most reasonably, elegantly and accurately of the major models of Ugaritic society. The PHM model of Ugarit as currently extant does not properly incorporate the evidence regarding the position of women in Ugaritic society. Though there have always been powerful women, even in the most patriarchal of societies, they influential women of Ugarit are demonstrably not exceptional under emic consideration. The material culture of Ugarit demonstrates that much in each household, the fundamental unit of a patrimonial society, were managed with a preference toward the affairs of women. Elite women can be seen to act freely in the management of land and households as independent actors in control of a patrimony. The extremely important corpus of

54

Ugaritic texts demonstrates that these cases cannot be explained via the delegation of patrimonial authority by; the law explicitly protected the rights of women to control inheritance, demonstrated that women were bound to duties and privileges relating to their patrimony. Though women passed between households with marriage not every household was headed by a man. The sociolinguistic implication of the extensive knowledge of Ugaritic language help to demonstrate that personal development and advancement, as suggested by Ugaritic language, are best understood as patrimonial but not patriarchal. The Patrimonial Household Model may require adaptation for use in understanding any site or society; that it can be so easily altered by defining what any individual culture sees as a patrimony or household without loosing its usefulness or meaning is a great recommendation for it. At Ugarit, though more can be done to examine households or economic units which may have been managed by women, by incorporating the present evidence for the potential for female patrimonialism and households without altering the societal norm, the PHM allows the most revealing insight yet into the society of Ugarit.

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Amarna Texts EA 45 EA 46 EA 47 EA 48 EA 49

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EA 98 Ugaritic Texts RS 4.449 RS 8.145 RS 11.857 RS 15.89 RS 15.092 RS 16.131 RS 16.135 RS 16.144 RS 16.146 RS 16.154 RS 16.161 RS 16.200 RS 16.249 RS 16.253 RS 16.261 RS 16.269 RS 16.295 RS 16.343 RS 17.021 RS 17.033 RS 17.086 RS 17.102 RS 17.149 RS 17.159 RS 17.325 RS 18.042

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RS 18.113 RS 19.068 RS 20.033 RS 34.153 CAT 1.24, 17 - 19 CAT 1.24, 33 37 KRT Tablet 2, III, 7 12 KRT Tablet 1, IV, 42

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