The Texts

Abstract

naturally. One or two standard tablet forms were used depending on the literary genre-administrative, economic, epistolary, legal, religious or mythological-being inscribed. The administrative texts, for example, consisted either of small lists recorded on tablets less than 10 x 5 cm in size, or large summary lists on tablets more than 10 x 6 cm in size. The characters were inscribed from left to right following lines more-or-less parallel to the upper edge of the tablet. If the text exceeded more than two columns, as with the mythological texts, the reverse side of the tablet was inscribed in the opposite direction. The words were generally isolated by dividers and the running on of one line to the next is rare. The division into paragraphs was indicated by horizontal strokes especially in the case of dictated letters. The final make up of a tablet could include a colophon that identified the author of the text. The written tablet was then allowed to dry slowly under natural conditions rather than being baked in a "tablet oven." The feature found in Courtyard V of the royal palace that the excavator thought was a tablet oven was in fact was no such thing, and the only Ugaritic tablets that were baked were done so accidentally by fire. The scribe appears to have been essentially a cog in the administrative wheel which, in turn, was at the service of some higher authority. The introduction of the Ugaritic alphabet (thirty letters instead of several hundred signs), eventually helped to reduce the status of this profession as the Ugaritic language became more accessible to a greater number of people. This fact has some bearing on the absence at Ugarit of divinities devoted to writing in contrast to the pantheons of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Nonetheless, the importance of certain scribes is beyond doubt. This is the case of Ilimilku, whose career appears to be worthy of interest for several reasons. A native of Shubanu, a town in Siyannu (a region south of Ugarit), he seems to have worked only at Ugarit. This scribe composed texts in Akkadian and in Ugaritic, and he "signed" a certain number of them in both languages by means of a colophon, which is unique in Ugaritic This use of the colophon was doubtless influenced by a Mesopotamian scribal education. But he was probably also motivated by the desire to make known his exceptional career. At first simply a scribe of legal texts in Akkadian under the reign of Ammishtamru II (ca. 1250 BCE), under Niqmaddu III (ca. 1220-1210 BCE) he composed most of the epic and mythological texts in Ugaritic. They remain to this day the source of his reknown. The South-Arabian Abecedary