Set in the eastern Mediterranean world of the 15th century BC, the story follows the adventures of the three sons of a Phoenician master builder through three loosely linked stories in which they travel to Egypt (Sinai), to the court of King Minos (Crete) and north to Ugarit.
Tsumura's doctorate, also in Mediterranean Studies, was also awarded by the same university in 1973, for his work on Ugarit.
From about the 16th century BC to the 12th, it was an important trading center for copper, which was smelted at the site, with strong cultural links to Ugarit on the facing coast of Syria.
Ugarit |
This is significant since Ptah is a parallel for Noah in that, as the Blacksmith-God of Thebes (Hephaistos-Vulcan), he is the equivalent of the Phoenician Craftsman-God Khousor, which is Ugaritic Kṯr, Kothar, Kothar-wa-Khasis, "The-Very-Skillful-and-Intelligent-One," which is the same character as the Sumero-Akkadian Noahs: Utnapishtim (in the Gilgamesh Epic), Atra-Ḫasīs, and Ziusudra (Khousor = Ptah at Ugarit).
The cities with which Mari is confirmed to have traded include: Ur, Aleppo, and Ugarit.
These were followed by the Hittite, Greek and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor, Elam in pre-Iranian Persia, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Phoenicia and Israel), Persian and Median civilizations in Iran, North Africa (Carthage/Phoenicia) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar).
Examples of the earliest known private libraries include one found in Ugarit (dated to around 1200 BC) and the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (near modern Mosul, Iraq), dating back to the 7th century BC.