Ras Shamra tablets
E377988
The Ras Shamra tablets are a cache of Late Bronze Age cuneiform texts from ancient Ugarit that preserve a rich corpus of Northwest Semitic mythology, poetry, and administrative records crucial for understanding Canaanite religion and early alphabetic writing.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Ras Shamra tablets canonical | 5 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3654837 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ras Shamra tablets Context triple: [El, appearsInText, Ras Shamra tablets]
-
A.
Pyrgi Tablets
The Pyrgi Tablets are a set of ancient gold inscriptions from the 5th century BCE bearing parallel texts in Etruscan and Phoenician, making them a key source for understanding the Etruscan language and its cultural contacts.
-
B.
Standard of Ur
The Standard of Ur is an ancient Sumerian artifact from around 2600–2400 BCE, a richly inlaid wooden box depicting scenes of war and peace that offers key insights into early Mesopotamian society.
-
C.
Iguvine Tablets
The Iguvine Tablets are a set of ancient bronze inscriptions from Iguvium (modern Gubbio, Italy) that preserve one of the most important surviving texts in the Umbrian language and provide key insights into Italic religion and ritual.
-
D.
Lachish ewer inscription
The Lachish ewer inscription is an early Proto-Canaanite text engraved on a pottery vessel from ancient Lachish, often cited as one of the oldest known examples of alphabetic writing in the Levant.
-
E.
Orphic gold tablets
Orphic gold tablets are small inscribed funerary lamellae from the ancient Greek world that provide initiates of the Orphic religious tradition with ritual instructions and guidance for the soul’s journey in the afterlife.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Ras Shamra tablets Target entity description: The Ras Shamra tablets are a cache of Late Bronze Age cuneiform texts from ancient Ugarit that preserve a rich corpus of Northwest Semitic mythology, poetry, and administrative records crucial for understanding Canaanite religion and early alphabetic writing.
-
A.
Pyrgi Tablets
The Pyrgi Tablets are a set of ancient gold inscriptions from the 5th century BCE bearing parallel texts in Etruscan and Phoenician, making them a key source for understanding the Etruscan language and its cultural contacts.
-
B.
Standard of Ur
The Standard of Ur is an ancient Sumerian artifact from around 2600–2400 BCE, a richly inlaid wooden box depicting scenes of war and peace that offers key insights into early Mesopotamian society.
-
C.
Iguvine Tablets
The Iguvine Tablets are a set of ancient bronze inscriptions from Iguvium (modern Gubbio, Italy) that preserve one of the most important surviving texts in the Umbrian language and provide key insights into Italic religion and ritual.
-
D.
Lachish ewer inscription
The Lachish ewer inscription is an early Proto-Canaanite text engraved on a pottery vessel from ancient Lachish, often cited as one of the oldest known examples of alphabetic writing in the Levant.
-
E.
Orphic gold tablets
Orphic gold tablets are small inscribed funerary lamellae from the ancient Greek world that provide initiates of the Orphic religious tradition with ritual instructions and guidance for the soul’s journey in the afterlife.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
ancient Near Eastern texts
ⓘ
archaeological artifact collection ⓘ cuneiform tablets ⓘ |
| alphabetSize | 30 letters ⓘ |
| approximateDateRange |
13th century BCE
ⓘ
14th century BCE ⓘ |
| chronologicalPeriod | Late Bronze Age ⓘ |
| contains |
administrative records
ⓘ
legal documents ⓘ letters ⓘ mythological texts ⓘ poetic texts ⓘ ritual texts ⓘ |
| culturalContext |
Levantine Bronze Age
ⓘ
Ugarit ⓘ
surface form:
Ugaritic culture
|
| datingMethod |
archaeological stratigraphy
ⓘ
paleography ⓘ |
| discoveredAtSite | Ras Shamra archaeological site ⓘ |
| discoveredBy | Claude F. A. Schaeffer ⓘ |
| discoveryDate | 1928 ⓘ |
| foundAt |
Ugarit
ⓘ
surface form:
Ras Shamra
Ugarit ⓘ
surface form:
ancient city of Ugarit
|
| importanceFor |
biblical studies
ⓘ
comparative Semitic linguistics ⓘ history of alphabetic writing ⓘ study of Canaanite religion ⓘ study of Northwest Semitic languages ⓘ |
| includesDeity |
Anat
ⓘ
Asherah ⓘ Baal ⓘ El ⓘ |
| includesTextCycle |
Ugaritic Baal Cycle
ⓘ
surface form:
Baal Cycle
|
| language |
Akkadian
ⓘ
Ugaritic ⓘ |
| locatedIn | Syria ⓘ |
| material | clay ⓘ |
| region |
Northwest Semitic
ⓘ
surface form:
Northwest Semitic world
|
| religiousTraditionDocumented |
Canaanite religion
ⓘ
Ugaritic religion ⓘ |
| scriptFamily |
Northwest Semitic alphabetic script
ⓘ
surface form:
Northwest Semitic alphabetic scripts
|
| scriptType | consonantal alphabet ⓘ |
| signFunction |
alphabetic signs
ⓘ
logographic signs ⓘ syllabic signs ⓘ |
| signType | cuneiform signs ⓘ |
| storedIn |
Louvre Museum
ⓘ
National Museum of Damascus ⓘ |
| writingSystem |
Akkadian cuneiform
ⓘ
Ugaritic alphabet ⓘ
surface form:
Ugaritic cuneiform
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Ras Shamra tablets Description of subject: The Ras Shamra tablets are a cache of Late Bronze Age cuneiform texts from ancient Ugarit that preserve a rich corpus of Northwest Semitic mythology, poetry, and administrative records crucial for understanding Canaanite religion and early alphabetic writing.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.