Baal, properly Baʽal, was a title and honorific meaning "owner", "lord" in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities but inscriptions have shown that the name Baʿal was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations.
ʼĒl is a Northwest Semitic word meaning "god" or "deity", or referring to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ʼila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʼ‑l, meaning "god".
Hadad, Adad, Haddad or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎dIM—the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Set.
Ugarit was an ancient port city in northern Syria, in the outskirts of modern Latakia, discovered by accident in 1928 together with the Ugaritic texts. Its ruins are often called Ras Shamra after the headland where they lie.
Ugaritic is an extinct North-West Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologists in 1929 at Ugarit. It has been used by scholars of the Hebrew Bible to clarify Biblical Hebrew texts and has revealed ways in which the cultures of ancient Israel and Judah found parallels in the neighboring cultures.
Asherah, in ancient Semitic religion, is a mother goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources. She appears in Akkadian writings by the name of Ašratu(m), and in Hittite as Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess ʾAṯiratu.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic itself represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate.
Sons of God is a phrase used in the Hebrew Bible and in Christian Apocrypha. The phrase is also used in Kabbalah where bene elohim are part of different Jewish angelic hierarchies.
Nikkal, Ugaritic 𐎐𐎋𐎍 nkl, full name Nikkal-wa-Ib, is a goddess of Ugarit/Canaan and later of Phoenicia. She is a goddess of orchards, whose name means "Great Lady and Fruitful" and derives from Akkadian / West Semitic "´Ilat ´Inbi" meaning "Goddess of Fruit". De Moor translates Ugaritic 𐎛𐎁 "ib" as "blossom" which survives in biblical Hebrew as אֵב and cites Canticles 6:11 as a survival of this usage
Niqmaddu III was the seventh known ruler and king of Ugarit, an Ancient Syrian citystate in northwestern Syria, reigning from 1225 to 1220 BC, succeeding king Ibiranu. He took his name from the earlier Amorite ruler Niqmaddu, meaning "Addu has vindicated" to strengthen the supposed origins of his Ugaritic dynasty in the Amorites.
Ammittamru I was a king of the Ancient Syrian city of Ugarit who ruled c. 1350 BC.
Niqmaddu II was the second ruler and king of Ugarit, an ancient Syrian citystate in northwestern Syria, reigning c. 1350–1315 BC and succeeding his less known father, Ammittamru I. He took his name from the earlier Amorite ruler Niqmaddu, meaning "Addu has vindicated" to strengthen the supposed origins of his Ugaritic dynasty is the Amorites.
Ar-Halba was the third known ruler of Ugarit, an Ancient Syrian city state in northwestern Syria, reigning for no less than two years, possibly from 1315 to 1313 BC. Succeeding king Niqmaddu II.
Niqmepa was the fifth-from-last King of Ugarit, a city-state in northwestern Syria. Niqmepa was a contemporary of Mursili II and Hattusili III, the great Hittite kings, as well as Horemheb and Seti I of Egypt.
Danel, father of Aqhat, was a culture hero who appears in an incomplete Ugaritic text of the fourteenth century BCE at Ugarit, Syria, where the name is rendered DN'IL, "El is judge".
The Legend of Keret, also known as the Epic of Kirta, is an ancient Ugaritic epic poem, dated to Late Bronze Age, circa 1500 – 1200 BC. It recounts the myth of King Keret of Hubur. It is one of the Ugarit texts.
Adon literally means "lord." Adon has an uncertain etymology, although it is generally believed to be derived from the Ugaritic ad, “father.”
Ibiranu was the sixth king of Ugarit, a city-state in northwestern Syria. He was the second-eldest son of Ammittamru II. Ibiranu's older step-brother and heir apparent to the throne, Utri-Sarruma, decided to leave the kingdom when his mother's marriage was annulled, and Ibiranu became the next king of Ugarit. Ibiranu reigned between c. 1235 and 1225/20 BC, and was a contemporary of Tudhaliya IV and Arnuwanda III of Hatti. As a vassal state of Hatti the king was answerable to the viceroy at Carchemish.
Ahatmilku was a princess of Amurru, who became queen of Ugarit through marriage.
The Royal Palace of Ugarit was the royal residence of the rulers of the ancient kingdom of Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. The palace was excavated with the rest of the city from the 1930s by French archaeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer and is considered one of the most important finds made at Ugarit.
