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From Crac, we followed the itinerary to Tartous, a port city of significant historical importance, only to turn around again as soon as we arrived as the driver said there was nothing there other than some old houses!Ugarit came next.Ugarit is a Bronze Age city that flourished from about c. 1450 to 1200 BC, was inhabited by 6,000 BC or even earlier but then became completely deserted.The ruins lie in a large artificial mound called RasShamra and are north of Lattakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast.The ruins, about half a mile from the shore, were first uncovered by the plow of a peasant but excavations began proper in 1929.The excavations revealed the world's first linear alphabet, which originated around 1400 BC, and information about Canaanite religion that is highly significant for Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies.Subsequent excavations have revealed an important city that takes its place alongside Ur and Eridu as a cradle of urban culture.
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