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Conspectus Librorum - Book Review:


Valérie MATOÏAN (ed.) Le Mobilier du Palais Royal d'Ougarit (Ras Shamra-Ougarit XVII). Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée-Jean Pouilloux, 2008. 1 vol. n 4°, 399 pp., XXI pls, ISBN 978-2-903264-99-4.




In the introduction to this publication prefaced by Yves Calvet, the French director of the Ras Shamra-Ougarit mission (p. 11-12), Valérie Matoïan reminds the reader that the contributions gathered here were initially presented at the occasion of an international round table in the MOM (Lyon) in December 1995 (p.13-16).
In the following critical assessment entitled "Les objets du Palais royal d'Ougarit: un état de la question" (p.17-72), the same author reviews evidence both published and unpublished to date and we are very grateful indeed for a series of first glances at, for example, metal vessels from the royal palace.
Emmanuelle Vila raises the question as to how to interpret the canines of bears and wild boars in her "Les vestiges de faune du Palais royal d'Ougarit conservés au Musée national de Damas" (p.73-84): huntingµ trophies, raw materials waiting to be transformed into paraphernalia of all sorts or indicators of magical rituals? Jacqueline Gachet-Bizollon reviews the evidence of ivory implements and (cultic ?) furniture in her contribution "Les ivoires du Palais Royal d'Ougarit : bilan de la recherche" (85-100), which refers a.o. to the triple recessed prototype of the "woman at the window" ivory plaques found in situ but hardly commented upon ever since. In the following study "Un oeuf d'autruche peint découvert lors du dégagement de la "salle du trône" du Palais Royal d'Ougarit", Valérie Matoïan presents an ill-known ostrich egg from the royal palace (p.101-116).
The issue of niello and "black copper" techniques in Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant is tackled by Ella Dardaillon under the heading "Le nielle et le "cuivre noir": problèmes de terminologie" (p.117-126). Starting with the ivory head rendered famous by its emblematic place on Syrian 500 Pounds notes, the author cautions to use neither of these terms before more lab analyses become available.
Valérie Matoïan joins up forces with Michel Al-Maqdissi in the paper "La céramique découverte par C. Schaeffer dans le Palais Royal d'Ougarit : remarques générales" (127-156), wherein readers are once again offered a generous treat of yet unpublished samples of local wares as well as imported Cypriote and Mycenaean fabrics.
In collaboration with Jean-Claude Icart and Claude Chanut, Valérie Matoïan lifts the veil on a project involving the study of some 500 stone objects "Le matériel en pierre du Palais royal d'Ougarit : diagnose, nomenclature, provenance et usage" (p.157-190). Besides establishing a precise terminology for the different types of stones, the authors suggest that local stones were used for the manufacture of objects of daily use, whereas imported raw materials were preferred for the production of objects with a more aesthetic value. Busy bee Valérie (Matoïan) goes solo for a last paper signed by her hand, entitled "Des roches précieuses dans le Palais royal d'Ougarit : les calcédoines rubanées (agates)" (p.191-214). Fifteen unpublished artefacts in banded chalcedony (agate) are added to a corpus totalling seventeen artefacts carved in what the author proposes to consider a "royal material".
Etienne Bordreuil analyses the weights from the Royal Palace in "Les poids du Palais royal d'Ougarit dans leur contexte archéologique et épigraphique " (p.215-246), a metrological approach offering many new insights thanks to the exploitation of the archaeological and epigraphical context. Claude Chanut's second contribution to the present volume, "Palais royal d'Ougarit. Apport des textes à la connaissance de la pierre des objets : choses vues, choses lues " (p.247-260) casts new light on the importance of Ugarit in the international trade of (precious) stones. In her paper "Réexamen des monuments du Palais royal d'Ougarit inscrits en hiéroglyphes égyptiens conservés au Muséé national de Damas", (p.261-280), Bérénice Lagarce refines earlier readings and identifications of aegyptiaca from the palace, adding a few unpublished travertine vessels to the existing corpus.
The following paper's title "Quelques remarques à propos des archives du Palais Royal d'Ougarit " (p.181-290) refers to a cluster of new observations concerning the location of the royal archives, a problem which Sylvie Lackenbacher had already tackled in the 2001 volume of KTEMA. Illustrated by a small textual corpus, Anne-Sophie Dalix Meier's "Approche méthodologique appliquée au matériel épigraphique rédigé en cunéiformes alphabétiques : exemples de recollages dans les archives palatiales", (p.291-306) features a methodological approach based on a cluster of parameters assuring a maximum of information on the archives. Cl. Schaeffer's so-called " four pour cuire les tablettes" retains the attention of several specialists who teamed up for both the next contributions. On the one hand, Yvan Coquinot, Anne Bouquillon, Alain Leclaire and Valérie Matoïan propose to disconnect the oven in question from the hoard of tablets originally stocked in a bag found in its immediate vicinity in their study "Le four aux tablettes" du locus 153 ("ex-cour V") du Palais royal d'Ougarit : nouvelles données sur le matériel non épigraphique" (p.307-326). On the other hand, the epigraphists Robert Hawley, Florence Malbran-Labat and Carole Roche arrive at the conclusion that both series of tablets originally distinguished in the oven represent in reality a single group, dating to the end of Ugarit's Late Bronze Age occupation history : "Pour une étude sur les textes de l' "ex-four" dans l' "ex-cour" V du Palais royal d'Ougarit" (p.327-344).
The volume's last contribution, "Structure et interprétation du texte ougaritique RS 18.086 " (p.345-374), is signed by Dennis Pardee who offers an in-depth study of a tablet which can now safely be assigned to the last decades of the kingdom's history.

Profusely illustrated with line-drawings and colour plates of an excellent quality, this publication is a real must for every scholar working on Ugarit and the Levant in general. Valérie Matoïan cannot be congratulated enough for the initiative of organising the round table on Ugarit's Royal Palace and to bring such an amount of scholarly findings to publication within a short lapse of time.


Prof. Dr. Eric Gubel
Senior Keeper Antiquity Department
Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels


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