All aspects of the ancient site of Ras Shamra (Ugarit) are treated in this compendium: discovery, decipherment of script, interpretation of literary, diplomatic and legal texts, as well as analysis of languages, history, religion and iconography. Cyrus Gordon called its archives 'the foremost literary discovery of the twentieth century' and they have undoubtedly revolutionized our knowledge of the background to Greek, Phoenician and Israelite culture.