Chapter XXI (a)
Anatolia from Shuppiluliumash to Muwatallish
1350-1300 B.C.
Shuppiluliumash spent his whole exhausting reign battling to keep the Hittite empire together, especially in Syria. His son, Muwatallish, was more successful.
The empire stretched from Lebanon to Pontus.
Chapter XXI (b)
Ugarit, 14th and 13th centuries B.C.
Much do we owe this long-ruined town in north Syria, north of Sidon (KJV Map 2), now called Ras Shamra.
One of the richest and most powerful cities of the late Bronze Age, a natural link between the Aegean and the Levant.
Ugarit enters recorded history circa 1349 B.C. strongly under Egyptian influence. The king of Ugarit at this time, Ammittamru I, appears in El-Amarna correspondence.
Poetic rhythm, ala Homer, and the first Phoenician alphabet, may have come from cosmopolitan Ugarit.
Under Amittamru’s son, Niqmaddu II, Ugarit loyalty passed to the Hittite Empire which was then ruled by Shuppiluliumash I. (1325)
A prosperous century passed. Then came the end: Hittite power faded under Shuppiluliumash II and the Sea Peoples attacked Ugarit to cut off this most important ally to him (1100s B.C.) Earthquake and fire completed the devastation.
The Ras Shamra texts provided the first substantial evidence outside of the Bible of Syria-Canaanite religious practices. [Other than “Phoenikike Historia, attributed to Sanchuniathon, preserved in Philo of Byblos, now extant only in the “Preparatio Evangelica of Eusebius].
Chapter XXI- Troy
(Troy VII)
1250 to 1184 B.C. are the date ranges for the destruction of this level of Troy; in all likelihood, the event at the core of the Iliad – taking us, in historical connection at least, to the first literature of the Western World. [Homer, if he was a real person, lived at least three centuries after this event.]
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