A friend recently recommended a book by a former forest ranger named Roger Jewell, who describes an astonishing traffic in pure copper ingots, extracted from the mines along the shores of Lake Superior, and administered, he says, by enterprising Minoans or possibly Canaanites, or both, who mixed with the local populace while they tended their business, across the lakes and rivers of the northeastern United States, island-hopping out across the North Atlantic, down through the British Isles and across the Mediterranean to, among other Levantine ports, legendary Ugarit (Ras Shamra), nestled in the shadow of the Jebel al-Aqra (Mount Sanpanu). (See: Ancient Mines of Kitchi-Gummi, A Case Study, Fairfield, Pennsylvania, Jewell Histories, 2000).

"Metals, both precious and industrial, were extremely common trade goods," says Shelley Wachsmann (see: Seagoing Ships & Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant, London, Chatham Publishing, 1998). Wachsmann goes on to describe enormous ingots of copper and tin regularly unearthed in Bronze Age shipwreck sites and depicted, as well, on Egyptian frescoes portraying maritime trade. Later, during the Hellenistic period and afterward, under Rome, these ingredients for the precious trade in bronze were so highly valued that commercial cargo extended to scrap tin and copper destined for recycling.

Long distance trade on seagoing vessels was indeed a verifiable reality, often extending to the establishing of colonies. The Phoenicians were especially given to guaranteeing portage by settling their numbers in a chain of communities around the entire Mediterranean basin, as links to complement their colonies in Carthage in North Africa, Utica in Italy, and Cadiz in Spain. These included nuclei of traders and craftsmen integrated among local cultures, for example at Teke on Crete or Lefkandi in Greece.

The Jewell book, however, refers to between 20 and 50 million pounds, or perhaps kilos or even tons, of copper, mined between 2400 B.C. and 1200 B.C., deemed essential, furthermore, to the massive quantities of weaponry and artisanship produced during the Bronze Age throughout Egypt and the Near East. Traces of such staggering amounts of copper vanished from the area of Lake Superior (Kitchi Gummi), but reappeared in the eastern Mediterranean, and along the caravan routes through Syria and Mesopotamia. The clues to the connection are many, says Jewell, and include both religious relics identical in North America and Western Asia, and linguistic references.

Linguistics was indeed a specialty of Ugarit, and complemented its reputation as a naval power. One text, a message from "The Sun" or Lord of the Realm, in Ugarit's revolutionary alphabetic script, is a plea: "The enemy is over us [and] there is no copper… Purify copper, search [for it], wherever you can obtain this and send it to me."

The city-state of Ugarit was located just ten kilometers to the north of present-day Latakia, still Syria's principal port. Correspondence from Amarna, confirmed in the annals of Thutmose III and his ninth campaign, c. 1445 B.C., suggested the diplomatic ties between Egypt and the prosperous port, certainly one of many along the Syrian coast, until at least the end of the Late Bronze Age. A tin inventory from Mari during the reign of Zimri-Lim, in a text dated to 1780-1760 B.C., confirmed Ugarit as a major port of entry for Aegean merchants and suppliers to the Syro-Canaanite coast, as well as trans-shipment point for a wide range of merchandise bound for the Euphrates.

Ugarit and Mari were in any case well known to each other. Zimri-Lim's legendary palace had inspired other monarchs of the region to extend themselves in the designing and furnishing of their own palaces. The splendor of the royal residences was constantly subject to revision. "I tell you, there is no mayor's residence that can compare with that at Tyre. It is like the residence at Ugarit. Extraordinarily large are the riches there." This was a commentary by Rib-Hadda, prince of Byblos and subject of the Egyptian monarch, Akhenaten (1364-1345 B.C.). Says Amelie Kuhrt, "To alert the pharaoh to the power of the neighboring ruler of Tyre and warn him of his ambitions, he compared Tyre's wealth and splendor to that of Ugarit", which, she goes on to say, lay beyond Egypt's empire and was probably at this point an independent domain.

The detailed texts in the various archives elaborate on the history, society and culture of a typical Canaanite state in the period from c. 1400 B.C. to just after 1200 B.C. They establish that about 1330 B.C. Ugarit came under Hittite domination and in fact - confirmed in repeated treaties and pacts between them -- was long an ally of the land-locked Hittites, purveyors of goods to and from Carchemish and Emar, and -- in support of Jewell's hypothesis -- "capable of raising large quantities of copper and other metals necessary for craft and industry". Ugarit was also the Hittites' most effective support against the coastal pirate raids and inland plundering of the mysterious "Sea Peoples", by this time a serious threat to Syro-Canaanite stability.

It was precisely the long-time political stability in Syria that had guaranteed Ugarit's prosperity through trade, especially during the reign of Niqmaddu II and afterwards, that of his son, Arkhalba, in total nearly a century of relative peace and luxury, brought to an abrupt end around the beginning of the twelfth century B.C. by the definitive invasion of the "Sea Peoples", who literally annihilated the Syro-Canaanite coastal cities. Texts in the Ugarit archives describe the last days of what appear to have been a brilliant culture.

Texts dealing with international affairs and trade were stored separately from those containing administrative documentation. The royal palace on Ugarit's wooded knolls, overlooking the soft eastern Mediterranean coastline, covered nine to ten thousand square meters, and included elaborate drainage and an ablutions slab. It was entered from a fortified gateway in the city ramparts, up steps that led to a two pillared-porch. Dozens of rooms included reception areas, audience halls, throne rooms, courtyards with shallow reflection pools and fountains, gardens, stairways to the royal apartments on the second level, a large burial vault under the paved floor; and, significantly, five separate archives. The administrative lists were mostly devoted to landowners, citizens who received doles or paid taxes, and were enumerated by category: "food rations", "provisions", "summary" or simply "list". The "Central Archive", for example, was abrupt. It described the regulation of the transfer of land inside the city precincts. The "Southern Archive", on the other hand, pertained to Ugarit's foreign relations.

A text dealing with trade refers exclusively to merchandise, and includes what amounts to a bill of lading discovered on a cargo ship that sank off the coast, its manifest still intact: milk, fish, dried fruit, wool, clothing, slaves, animals (both for husbandry and consumption), olive oil from the Orontes valley, cedarwood from Lebanon, grains from Carchemish in the heart of the Fertile Crescent.

The documents were written in both Ugaritic and Akkadian languages, the latter the diplomatic idiom of the time. Linguists J. Hoftijzer and W.H. van Soldt describe Ugaritic as a cognate to Hebrew, in turn a branch of a western Semitic language that was written according to a linear alphabetic script of thirty signs, still employing the cuneiform of the time but reading left to right. The format was more flexible than the previous blocks of characters, and so lent itself to the languages - Phoenician, Greek and Latin-that would follow. Normally, as with Akkadian, Ugaritic was inscribed on moist clay tablets that were later baked, and then stored, thus facilitating their preservation over the centuries, despite fire, flood, invasion, even earthquake.

The king reigned supreme, according to the texts, and after him the prefect, who was responsible for the day-by-day affairs of state. Then came the overseers, including an "overseer of the harbor" and an "overseer of the seamen". A military sector was negligible. The texts, at least, indicate a rather simple social structure, based on two distinct groups, the "people of the king" employed by the palace, and the free citizens, called "sons of Ugarit", among them the craftsmen and members of the guilds. These included specialists in gold and silver smithing, scribes, soldiers, priests, domestic contractors, cartwrights, bowmakers, and shipbuilders. The population in the towns and villages under Ugarit's jurisdiction would appear to represent the non-specialized segment of society, including farmers and herders, though seamen might have been recruited from among their numbers.

Ugarit's strength, judging from all sources, was derived specifically from trade. In addition to locally built craft, Ugarit purchased ships from Tyre and Byblos, as described by Diodorus Siculus. Furnishings and equipment were contracted separately and often planks and beams for hulls and decks, as well. Ugarit was uniquely celebrated for its "gigantic" anchors. These weighed up to half a ton each, giving an idea of the size of the ocean-going vessels. Both "weight-anchors" and "composite anchors" appeared in three principal shapes: an elongated rectangle, a rhomboid and a triangle.

Ships sailed among the city-states on the Syro-Canaanite coast and on to Egypt, Cyprus, Cilicia, and throughout the Aegean, in an exchange that especially favored the Minoans, considered to be the outstanding marine explorers of the Late Bronze Age. These routes are patent in the list of personal effects recorded in a wreck of a ship loaded at Ugarit's harbor: scarabs, a lamp, mace heads, whetstones, an astragal, a cylinder seal, weights and traces of food. A description of such a wreck was found in a text still in the kiln: "As to a ship of yours that you sent to Egypt, that (ship) is in Tyre. Serious damage happened to it in a torrential rainstorm. The crew was found and their grain taken from them. But I recovered the grain (and) the crew and all their belongings, and I have returned everything to them."

The foundations for the Bronze Age city-state and its maritime supremacy originated in the second millennium B.C. when Ugarit was capital of a kingdom, probably Amorite, that extended across a tel or artificial hill only about twenty meters in height, that spread over approximately thirty-six hectares. The beautiful setting was completely surrounded by lemon groves and stands of Mediterranean cypress, juniper, boxwood and pine, around slopes covered with long grasses and wildflowers where flocks of sheep now graze at their leisure, down to the edge of the original opening to the sea, Ma'hadu, or Minat al-Baidaa, the "White Port". The present-day name, Ras Shamra, refers to the abundance of fennel that scents the sweet air.

The site, long since ruined, abandoned and forgotten, was accidentally discovered in 1928 when a peasant's plow hit the stones of a vaulted tomb, which eventually yielded important indications of a privileged Late Bronze Age society. Excavations were initiated in 1929 under the direction of Alsatian archaeologist Claude Frederic-Armand Schaeffer (1898-1982), one-time curator of the museum in Strasbourg, and reknowned authority on the Bronze Age cultures. His work in time, using stratographic soundings, revealed five separate archaeological levels. The uppermost corresponds to the Late Bronze Age, 1600-1200 B.C. and the time of Ugarit's demise. The second dates from the Middle Bronze Age, 2100-1600 B.C. References in the Mari archives, for example, describing the Babylonian word for "ugara" or "field", date from the Third Millennium. Level three dates from the Early Bronze Age, 3000-2100 B.C., and shows evidence of contact with the Halaf and Ubaid cultures. Level four dates from the Chalcolithic age of stone and copper, 6000-3000 B.C. Level five corresponds to the pre-pottery Neolithic, 7500-6000 B.C., from the first sedentary groups with their domestic animals and capacity for agricultural production, rudimentary shelters and grain storage. Yet while excavations continue to the present, only about a fourth of the city's area has been explored.

Underneath the various palaces of the nobles and the residences of wealthy tradesmen a number of vaulted tombs have yielded rich finds of effigies, votive offerings, jewelry, golden bowls, figurines, vases of faience and alabaster, stone stelae, locally made plain pottery, cylinder seals of local manufacture imitating the seals of the Euphrates cultures, along with bronze weapons and even furnishings. Yet little remains of the stone architecture that covered the acropolis, the orderly lanes that separated blocks of buildings, or the warehouses where production surpluses of grain, wine, salt, and olives were carefully stored in stacked amphorae, along with the most coveted wares of a lively crafts industry, including fine, purple-dyed linen or woolen garments, the color derived from the coastal murex shell.

The ruins of two principal temples still occupy the acropolis. Baal ("Lord" or "Master") was associated with the storm deity, proprietor of thunder and lightning, ubiquitous among the western Semitic pantheons, initially an expression of the Aramean Hadad and later identified with the Greek Zeus.

Baal appears in many references dating from the Third Millennium, but especially in the texts in the Ugarit archives, amounting to at least 500 mentions, which identify his origins in the nearby Jebel al-Aqra (Mount Sanpanu). This makes him, for purposes of the monarchy and the general population of Ugarit, a specific local deity. The "Baal Cycle", an epic-length text, extends to 1830 lines, the only saga to survive that describes the god as a son of Dagan.

Baal reigns in Ugarit with his sister and consort Anath. He struggles for supremacy, according to the regional mythology, against two brothers, Yam ("The Sea") and Mot ("Death"), foretelling, according to the texts, not only the decline of Ugarit but destruction that comes from the sea.

Dagan is also a western Semitic deity, revered throughout the Near East, though he presumably originated in the Middle Euphrates. The name, associated with "rain" and "grains", implies a fertility god, although in Mari, c. 2500 B.C., Dagan was also a lord of death and the underworld. If the inference is death and resurrection, it is implicit in the cycle of planting and reaping, and the "wheel of life", venerated throughout the region. In Ugarit, however, by 1300 B.C. Dagan's cult had made him father to Baal, therefore elevated his hierarchical significance, and established him as second in importance only to the Supreme God "El". In Ebla, nevertheless, c. 2300 B.C., Dagan was the outright king of the gods, so reigned supreme. He was also the principal deity of the Philistines, a fact that takes on further meaning in light of the association of the Philistines with the "Sea Peoples".

It is possible, says Amelie Kuhrt, that Ugarit suffered an earthquake and a tidal wave, followed by rampant fires. The deadly combination surely ruined its port and destroyed almost half the city, including the densely built acropolis, the lavish palace and its fortification walls. "Recovery from this disaster was swift, yet during the reign of Ammishtamru there was a conflict between Ugarit and its neighbor Amarrù in the region of Shiyannu, Ugarit's client state." After 1210 B.C., however, letters and texts, preserved in Ugarit, reveal that the city was suffering extensive pirate raids, ostensibly from groups described in Egyptian archives as "a massive horde of looting vandals, destroying all in their wake." Within a few years the magnificent palace, the harbor, its warehouses and much of the city of Ugarit lay in ruins. The former "summer palace" at adjacent Ras Ibn Hani, though destroyed, was soon reoccupied, but the days of Ugarit as the flourishing center of an important Syro-Canaanite maritime and mercantile state were over for all time.

The end of Ugarit is coincident with the onset of the Iron Age. The city, in effect, was never able to adapt to the new technology. Yet the last known reference to the site occurs in 1185 B.C. By this time Ugarit had been verifiably overpowered in the pirate attacks and coastal raids of the "Sea Peoples", of whom the Biblical Philistines were one group, and in which neighboring vassal states may have played a part, but all this was surely aggravated by earthquakes, a number of which have been recorded around those dates. Only this would explain the extent of the damage, and the stones of the proud and prosperous city, tossed across the green knoll in such fierce abandon. Ugarit was nonetheless, according to most sources, one of the most distinguished sites in the Levant, indispensable for its contribution to the history of the Semitic languages and its revelation of life in a Late Bronze Age culture.

What has any of this to do with five thousand copper mines around Lake Superior, 4500 years ago, emptied of at least 20 thousand kilos of pure metal and its ore? Did this and other trade contacts propitiate the native American language diversity? Or the otherwise inexplicable religious monuments with dedications directed at Baal? Could "a rich city like Ugarit", as Michael Wood proposes (see: In Search of the Trojan War, New York, BBC-Facts on File Publications, 1985), and verified in texts unearthed in the "Southern Archives", have been capable at any time, for example, to man 150 ships with 7000 fighting men, just to defend the Hittites under attack by marauding Greeks from Lycia, and had enough left over, as Roger Jewell suggests, to maintain a trans-Atlantic fleet of three to five ships apt for high density cargo, making a round trip every three years, over a 400-year period? And why did the flow of copper in the Lake Superior mines end coincidentally with the destruction of Ugarit? Will we ever know?

Carol Miller is a sculptress and journalist who has devoted her recent years to the research of ancient cultures, as well as cultural convergence and comparative mythology. She has traveled extensively in Syria to prepare the articles for Syria Gate, which are soon to appear in book form. For a look at bio and abstracts of other books see www.xlibris.com/CarolMiller.html, or Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com