# What is the Ba'al Cycle really about? ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about.webp]] **Channel:** Dig · **Published:** Oct 9, 2026 · **Length:** 27:58 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv1c-sKiB-0) ## Outline ### 0:00 The Ba'al Cycle - Tablets from Ras Shamra, now in the Louvre, tell how the storm god Baal struggled to become king of the gods. After nearly a century of study, the question is still "What is the Baal Cycle actually about?" It's "one of the most fascinating and frustrating texts from the ancient Near East." ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about-t0015.webp]] ### 0:51 Finding Ugarit - In 1928 a Syrian farmer found a stone covering a vaulted tomb. **René Dussaud** and **Claude Schaeffer** excavated Minet el-Beida, the city's port and necropolis, then moved about 1 km inland to a hill covered in fennel (*Ras Shamra*, "head of fennel"). - They found a palace, temples, fortifications and thousands of tablets in a previously unknown **alphabetic cuneiform**. The six tablets about the patron god Baal became "the Baal Cycle." ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about-t0115.webp]] ### 2:06 Understanding Ugaritic notations - **RS numbers** are find numbers: RS, then the excavation season, then the find number, with "+" joining pieces that fit together. **KTU** (*Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit*) numbers group texts by genre. The Baal Cycle is **KTU 1.1–1.6**. There are seven genres: literary/mythological, letters, legal, administrative/economic, scribal exercises, inscriptions on objects, and miscellaneous. - Obverse and reverse are often unclear, so Roman-numeral columns and line numbers are used instead. ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about-t0300.webp]] ### 4:56 The sequence of the tablets - Found on the acropolis between the temples of Baal and Dagan, in the so-called "library of the high priest." Six tablets, usually with 6 columns (1.2 has 4, 1.4 has 8). About **1,800 lines** survive out of perhaps up to 5,000, and most scholars think about 50% of the story is preserved. - Only **1.5 → 1.6** is a secure sequence, and 1.6 has a colophon naming the scribe **Ilimilku**, a student of the high priest **Attenu**. 1.3–1.4 have strong continuity (helped by joining KTU 1.8 to 1.3). Whether 1.1 and 1.2 belong, and whether they are two versions of one story, is still debated. ### 8:26 An analogy - "Imagine we only had bits and pieces of episode 1 through episode 6" of Star Wars, and only half the total runtime: you'd get the gist but lose the nuance. Interpretations end up deciding which tablets count, in what order, and filling gaps with parallels from elsewhere in the Near East. ### 9:12 What interpretive models require - He encourages viewers to read a translation themselves, because the fragmentary text is hard to follow. ### 9:58 The Baal Cycle summarized - **1.1–1.2, Baal vs. Yam (Sea):** El favors Yam, tells Anat not to back Baal, and has Kothar-wa-Hasis build Yam a palace. Baal defies Yam's envoys, Kothar-wa-Hasis encourages him, Baal wins, and El has to accept him as king. - **1.3–1.4, the palace:** Anat's tactless pleading fails. Gifts to Athirat (Asherah) persuade El. Kothar-wa-Hasis builds Baal's palace on **Mount Saphon**. Baal first refuses windows for fear of Yam, then thunders out of a new window so his enemies shudder. He invites **Mot** (Death) to a feast. - **1.5–1.6, Baal vs. Mot:** Mot scorns him, and a frightened Baal goes down to the underworld and apparently dies. El and Anat mourn. Anat defeats Mot, and El dreams of rain bringing the land back to life. Baal returns, Mot does too, and they fight again until Shapash tells Mot that El backs Baal. Mot gives in and declares Baal the rightful king. ### 13:53 What everyone agrees on - It's a story of conflict and resolution, of life overcoming death, and it is closely tied to kingship. Still, one scholar called it "largely impervious to comprehensive interpretation." There are three main schools: **seasonal, cosmogonic, political**. ### 14:57 The seasonal myth - Baal (rain) vs. Yam ("Judge River"), as competing waters and the old year against the new. Mot's temporary win stands for the summer drought, and Baal's return brings the autumn rains. This was linked to a supposed New Year festival modeled on the Babylonian **Akitu**. **Theodor Gaster** (*Thespis*) gave the first full synthesis. - **Problems:** it assumes things the text doesn't say (Yam as a dragon, Mot's banishment), the seasons don't line up with the story order, **no New Year festival is attested at Ugarit**, and Yam "doesn't require flooding or aquatic supremacy. He demands kingship." - **Defenses:** absence of evidence isn't proof. **Johannes de Moor** called it "a combination of nature myth and cult myth." The Levant depends on rain rather than rivers. Counterpoints: the Gezer Calendar records summer fruit harvests, and Baal is also linked to dew, which isn't seasonal. ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about-t1520.webp]] ### 19:19 The cosmogonic myth - Life against death, order against chaos. **Baruch Margalit**: "Death is the ultimate ruler of all that lives. However, Mot has a very serious problem… guaranteeing his source of supply." - It's not creation from nothing (*creatio prima*) but the ongoing upkeep of creation (*creatio continua*): El creates and Baal sustains. Building a temple amounts to building a cosmos, with parallels in Genesis and the Psalms. - **Critique:** it stretches "creation" beyond other Near Eastern cosmogonies, and kingship seems more central. He says this is "probably my preferred school of thought," and that it doesn't really conflict with the kingship reading. ### 22:31 The political myth: the limited exaltation of Baal - **Rejected older readings:** Yam as the Sea Peoples (but Ugarit didn't defeat them, and the text likely predates them), and Baal replacing El through Amorite newcomers around the 21st–20th century BC (but the evidence shows the two gods in the same hierarchy). - **Mark S. Smith's view:** kingship drives the whole story. Baal is king because he can pass the blessings of nature to people and to the gods. His power is limited, though: he needs Anat and Kothar-wa-Hasis against Yam, Athirat to plead with El, and Anat against Mot. That mirrors the king of Ugarit, powerful at home but a vassal under the Hittite great king. ![[images/What is the Baal Cycle really about-t2320.webp]] ### 26:35 Asking the best questions - Smith's model "incorporates the best of what's come before" and changes the question from *what does it mean* to *how did it function* in the society that made it: "its meaning can emerge out of its use." - Closing: "The story tells us what makes a good king… for the people of Ugarit, living in a world of kings, vassals, great powers, and fragile political alliances, this was not simply a story about the gods. It was a story about their own world and where they fit in it." ## Things mentioned **Sites and places** - Ugarit / Ras Shamra, Minet el-Beida - Acropolis temples of Baal and Dagan, the "library of the high priest" - Mount Saphon - The Louvre - Syria and the Levantine coast - Nile, Tigris, Euphrates **Texts and publications** - The Baal Cycle (KTU 1.1–1.6, with the KTU 1.8 join) - KTU / *Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit* - RS find numbers - Gaster's *Thespis* - Gezer Calendar - Genesis, Psalms **Concepts** - Alphabetic cuneiform, colophon, obverse and reverse - Divine council - Seasonal and ritual myth, the Akitu New Year festival - *Creatio prima* vs. *creatio continua* - Temple building as cosmos building - The limited exaltation of Baal - The Late Bronze Age vassal system **Peoples and polities** - Ugarit, the Hittites, the Sea Peoples, the Amorites **Pop culture** - Star Wars Episodes I–VI (the analogy) ## People, deities and subjects - **Dig**: an archaeology and history education channel (about 49.9k subscribers) on the Bronze and Iron Age Near East, Hittites, Canaan and the Aegean. It posts about every two weeks and has a Patreon. The narrator isn't named in this video. - **Baal (Ba'lu)**: Ugarit's storm god and patron deity, and the hero of the cycle. - **Yam (Yamm), "Prince Sea / Judge River"**: Baal's first rival, favored by El. - **Mot**: the god of death and the underworld. - **El**: father of the gods, creator and head of the divine council. - **Anat**: Baal's warlike sister and ally. - **Athirat (Asherah)**: El's consort, who speaks to El on Baal's behalf. - **Kothar-wa-Hasis**: craftsman god who builds both palaces. - **Shapash**: sun goddess who tells Mot to give up. - **Dagan**: god with a temple next to Baal's on the acropolis. - **Ilimilku**: the scribe named in the KTU 1.6 colophon. - **Attenu**: high priest and Ilimilku's teacher. - **René Dussaud** and **Claude Schaeffer**: French excavators of Ugarit. - **Theodor H. Gaster**: author of *Thespis*, which set out the seasonal/ritual model. - **Johannes C. de Moor**: Dutch Ugaritologist who called it nature myth plus cult myth. - **Baruch Margalit**: scholar of the Baal–Mot texts and the cosmogonic reading. - **Mark S. Smith**: leading Baal Cycle scholar, behind the kingship and "limited exaltation" model. - **Nicolas Wyatt**: named in the description as a key voice in political readings. - **George Lucas**: mentioned in the Star Wars analogy.