Ràs Šamrah is an artificial mound, about 20 m high and covering an area of about 25 hectares, situated about 12 km north of Laodicea and 1 km east of the coast. The accidental discovery of a peasant in the nearby port called Minat al-Bajdà (1928) attracted the attention of the Archaeological Service of Beirut and then of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, which decided to begin systematic excavations. These were entrusted to C. F.-A. Schaeffer, assisted by G. Chenet. Between 1929 and 1939, eleven campaigns were conducted; after the interruption due to the war and after soundings in the years 1948-49, excavations were resumed in 1950. It was estimated in 1939 that about one-eighth of the area had been explored, and this proportion has not been greatly altered by the new excavations.
Five archaeological strata have been distinguished at Ràs Šamrah, dating back to the 11th-5th millennia B.C. The first (12th-15th centuries) shows notable prosperity, interrupted around the mid-14th century by a severe fire; the city must then have recovered, only to decline definitively at the beginning of the Iron Age under the action of the Sea Peoples. The second stratum (16th-17th centuries) indicates the predominance of the Semitic element: the temples of Ba'al and Dagon and numerous vessels of Canaanite type date from this period; Egyptian and Cretan influences are not lacking, and traces remain of the passage of the Hyksos. In the third stratum (c. 3rd millennium) Canaanite pottery is still found, indicating the presence of Semites in the area from that time. The fourth stratum (c. 4th millennium) is characterized by elegant pottery, sometimes two- or three-colored, closely resembling Mesopotamian ware. Finally, in the fifth stratum (c. 5th millennium) painted pottery disappears and a much more archaic type is found.
The identification of modern Ràs Šamrah with ancient Ugarit was neither immediate nor easy. Mention of Ugarit had already been found in Egyptian, Hittite and Akkadian texts. After various hypotheses, the location of Ugarit at Ràs Šamrah was proposed by W. F. Albright in 1931 and then confirmed by a series of elements: the repeated discovery of the name Ugarit in texts from Ràs Šamrah; the discovery in 1933 of a colophon mentioning a Nqmd mlk Ugrt ("Nqmd king of Ugarit"); and finally an Akkadian letter found in 1934 and addressed to an inhabitant of the city, in which it is said: "May the gods of Ugarit protect you, my brother!"
Alongside the archaeological discoveries, which show Ugarit to have been a great cosmopolitan city exposed to multiple cultural influences, important are the finds of texts that accompanied the excavation campaigns. Egyptian, Hittite, Hurrian, and especially Sumerian and Akkadian documents have been found. But what especially aroused the interest of researchers was the discovery of many hundreds of clay tablets covered with a cuneiform script of Mesopotamian type, but differing in the form of the signs and in their number, which barely reached thirty. The decipherment was undertaken separately by C. Virolleaud, H. Bauer and E. Dhorme. The number of signs immediately suggested that this was an alphabetic script; the fact that individual words (separated by small vertical strokes) averaged 3-4 signs each indicated that it must be a language of the Semitic group, in which the average number of consonants per word is indeed such: this was further confirmed by the region where the texts were found. Through a series of subsequent hypotheses, in which the priority among the researchers is not always acceptable, the Ugaritic script was deciphered by 1930.
UGANDA - Church of Tinderet. Agricultural school of the Consolata Mission.
In 1951 there were 1,388 adult baptisms; Catholic Action flourishes there.
The region of the Great Lakes, explored by Livingstone and Stanley, was entrusted to the White Fathers by Pope Leo XIII with a rescript dated 24 Feb. 1878. The first two missionaries arrived in Entebbe on 17 Feb. 1879. The first four baptisms were administered on 27 March 1880 and were followed by many others. The vicariate of Nyanza, which on 15 Jan. 1915 became the vicariate of Uganda, was erected in 1883. At that time it included the territories that today form the vicariates of Bukoba and Lower Kagera, of Lake Albert in the Belgian Congo, of Kisumu in Kenya, of Ruwenzori, Masaka, Kampala and Tororo in the Uganda Protectorate. The progress of evangelization alarmed the indigenous chiefs, and the missionaries judged it expedient to withdraw southward in the same year 1883. There were already 200 catechumens at that time. They did not return to Uganda territory until 1885, under the indigenous king Mwanga I, who, however, in 1886 attempted to annihilate the nascent Christianity, which numbered 200 baptized and 800 catechumens. More than a hundred were killed, of whom 22 were beatified on 6 June 1920. In 1890 Uganda already had 50,000 Catholics, when English Protestants, allied with Muslims, tried again in 1892 to destroy that Christianity. But once the storm had passed, the mission resumed its progress, so much so that it deservedly earned the title of "Pearl of the Missions of Africa," despite the fact that its territory is now reduced to the proportions indicated above because of all the divisions it has undergone for the erection of other flourishing missions in full development. On 25 March 1953, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was established in Uganda, comprising the archdiocese of Rubaga, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate of Uganda; the diocese of Gulu, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate; the diocese of Kampala, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate; the diocese of Masaka, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate; the diocese of Mbarara, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate of Ruwenzori; the diocese of Tororo, formerly the Apostolic Vicariate of Upper Nile. - See pl. LXVIII.
Caro Corvo
(from A. Schaeffer, Ugaritica II, Paris 1949, pl. 1)
UGARIT - Gold patera with relief hunting scenes (15th-14th centuries B.C.), found at Ràs Šamrah.