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February 7, 2006
Modern Times Have Been Rough for Six Old Tablets from Ugarit
From illegal excavation at Ras Shamra, to black market in Switzerland, to publication in California, to a private collection in Europe, modern times have been rough for six tablets.
Yesterday Chris Heard published the second in his series of posts on various lists, prepared by others, of the most important archaeological finds. These posts are very good, each giving a brief, accurate portrayal of the importance of each suggested find for the understanding of the Hebrew Bible.
Among the finds that he discusses are the Ugaritic tablets. Along with his discussion, he publishes a picture of what I once knew as RS 1957.702 but it is likely better known today as KTU 3.9. Go and look at the picture. This is one of the two Ugaritic tablets that I have actually touched with my own hands. It is part of a collection of tablets from Ugarit which were acquired by a consortium of US educational institutions led by the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity of the Claremont Graduate School University in 1970. The other Ugaritc text is RS 1957.702 (aka KTU 4.709). In addition to the two Ugaritic tablets the collection contained four Akkadian tablets. The Ugaritc text that Chris pictured and one of the Akkadian texts, RS 1957.1, have proven to be of some significance, not that the others are without value. Dental casts of these tablets sit on my bookcases.
The full story of how these tablets came to Claremont has yet to be told. Perhaps someday it will be possible to tell it. The official story, true but not complete, is that the tablets were taken illegally from Ras Shamra in 1957 and found their way onto the antiquities market where Loren Fisher, my teacher, saw them in 1969 in a Swiss bank safety deposit box. Loren put together the consortium and arranged for them to be delivered to Claremont, California, in two groups; one arriving somewhere between February 6 and 9 of 1970 and the other group arriving on June 10 of the same year. Although I had opportunity to examine the tablets in the first shipment, I was actually in Loren's kitchen when he opened the second shipment. What exciting times.
The tablets were published in Fisher, Loren R. Editor, The Claremont Ras Shamra Tablets, Analecta Orientalia 48, Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1971. Michael Astour, Mitchell Dahood and Patrick Miller, all from consortium institutions, participated in the publication. One of the great things about being in Claremont in those years was meeting and working with the likes of these scholars. The next year I assisted Astour with a lengthy article on place names that occur in the Hebrew Bible and at Ugarit.
After touring the campuses of the consortium institutions, the tablets stood for many years in a display case in the main meeting room of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity in Claremont. A few years ago, they were sold to a private collector in Europe. Sad!
If I ever get through the tablets that may or may not be written in the shorter cuneiform alphabet, I think I'll take another look at both the Ugaritc and the Akkiadian tablets that for so many years were only two miles from my home and which I once was able to hold in my hands.
Posted by Duane Smith at February 7, 2006 4:09 PM | Read more on Ugarit |
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