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Baal Bronze Figurine

Bronze figurine of Baal from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), circa 14th–12th century B.C.E. Louvre Museum, Paris.

This Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 B.C.E.) figurine from the Louvre was discovered in 1932 during excavations by the French archeologist Claude F. A. Schaeffer at the temple of Baal at Ras Shamra, the site of the ancient acropolis of Ugarit, now in northwestern Syria. Like the limestone stela found during the same excavation, this bronze figurine depicts the Semitic weather god, Baal. Worship of Baal in Ugarit was highly linked to the economy, which depended on the regularity of rainfall in order to flourish. The figurine depicts Baal striding forward, his left hand raised over his head and his right hand grasping something in front of him.

 

Bronze figurine of Baal from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), circa 14th–12th century B.C.E. Louvre Museum, Paris.

The supreme male divinity of Mesopotamia and Canaan.

The stage of development during which humans used copper or bronze weapons; in the ancient Near East, approx. 3300 to 1200 B.C.E.

A site where older artifacts are dug up or otherwise revealed.

An upright stone slab usually inscribed or carved for commemorative purposes.

A Canaanite city-state on the Mediterranean coast in what is today western Syria. Ugarit was at its peak as an important regional center in the 15th to 13th centuries B.C.E., during which time it developed its own system of writing (an adapted cuneiform alphabet) and a rich collection of literary texts, many of which bear remarkable similarities to some biblical texts.

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