Transmission and reception of Babylonian knowledge in Ugarit. A preliminary study

Abstract

In the Late Bronze Age, the Near East saw the Babylonian intellectual heritage expansion throughout the region. Although previous works only studied this phenomenon from the Babylonian perspective, recent trends and methodologies prefer to present it from the reception sites. One of them was the Levantine city of Ugarit. This kingdom developed an active and profitable international commerce as well as intense diplomatic contacts with the cradles of that knowledge, Babylon and Assyria. On this matter, clay tablets that belong to Babylonian tradition were unearthed in several private houses whose owners were important merchants and administrators of the Kingdom. Some of these texts reveal that these houses were also schools where Babylonians and Assyrians worked as teachers.