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in his journey there.  They may have been involved in negotiations with 
him for the return of his son Aqhat.  Eight of them led by Repu-Baal 
(Rapiu? Baal?) arrive at a feast given by El in chariots, on horseback, 
and on wild asses.

Moloch (Melech, Malik, Milcom?, Melqart?) - Not explicitly found in the 
Ugarit texts, Molech is a bit of an enigma.  He shows up in the Old 
Testament in Leviticus 18 and 20, 1 Kings 11, 2 Kings 23, and Jerimiah 
32.  From that he appears to be a god of the Ammonites - a region west of 
the Jordon - whose worshipers sacrificed children in fires at temples, 
some of which were in the Valley of Hinnom, i.e. Gehenna, just south of 
Jerusalem.  The Old Testament also names the similarly spelt "Milcom" as 
a god of the Ammonites leading to the suspicion that they are the same 
god.  Molech is probably not the original name of the deity.  There has 
been a good deal of argument as to whether Molech could be identified 
with another foreign deity and which deity that would be, or whether 
"molech" was simply a term which refered to child sacrifice of any sort.  
The Canaanite gods Mot and Melqart of Tyre, and the Mesopotamian god 
Nergal, whom I believe is somewhere referred to as Malik=king, are a 
some of the prime candidates for being Molech.  For more indepth 
off-line disscussion of this see:

Day, John, _Molech:A_God_of_Human_Sacrifice_in_the_Old_Testament_,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989.

  C. Demi-gods and Heroes

Keret - Keret was a king (of Khubur?) and possibly the son of El (this 
may be an expression for a fortunate person) who lost his estate and his 
sucsessive eight wives to death, disease, and accident before any one of 
them could produce an heir.  Having fallen asleep in tears, he is visited 
by El in a dream and offered kingship and riches to assuage his sorrow.  
This is ineffective as Keret only desires sons and heirs.  El directs him 
to make an animal and wine sacrifice to El and Baal on the tower and then 
muster an army to lay siege to the city of Udm.  There, Keret is to 
refuse offers from the Udm's king Pabil and demand his daughter, the fair 
Huray.  Keret does as instructed, vowing to himself to give Huray an 
enormous sum of wealth upon his success.
	Returning to his estate with Huray, Keret is blessed by El at 
Baal's behest and is promised eight sons, the first of which, Yassib, 
shall have Athirat and Anat as nursemaids.  In addition, Huray will bear 
eight daughters all of whom as blessed as a first-born child.  Athirat 
calls attention to Keret's promise of wealth to Huray which he has yet to 
fulfil.  
	Later, Keret and Huray prepare a great feast for the lords of 
Khubur.  Later still Keret has become deathly ill and Huray entreats 
guests at a feast to morn for him and make sacrifices on his behalf.
	The household is tense and Keret's son Elhu, despondently visits 
his father.  Keret tells him not to sorrow, but to send for his 
sympathetic sister, Keret's daughter Thitmanat ('the eighth one').  Her 
sympathy, heighted Keret expects from her surprise at his state will 
evoke the attention of the gods during a sacrifice he intends to 
perform.  Indeed she weeps readily when the truth is revealed.  
Meanwhile, the rains have ceased with Keret's illness, but return after a 
ceremony on Mt. Zephon.  El convenes an assembly of the gods and 
dispatches the demoness Sha'taqat who cures Keret.  Keret's son and heir 
Yassib, unaware of his father's cure entreats him to surrender his throne 
as he has been remiss in his duties, but Yassib is rebuffed and cursed.

Daniel - 'He of Harnan', a devotee of Rapiu (Baal) and a patriarchal 
king.  Like Keret, Daniel is in mourning because unlike his brothers he 
had no sons.  So, for several days he sacrificed food and drink to the 
gods.  On the seventh day, Baal takes notice and successfully petitions 
El to allow Daniel and his wife, Danatay, to have a child, citing, among 
other reasons, that the child will be able to continue the contributions 
and sacrifices to their temples.  El informs Daniel of his impending 
change of fortune.  He rejoyces and slaughters an ox for the Kotharat, 
pouring sacrifices to them for six days and watching them depart on the 
seventh.  During some missing columns, Danatay gives birth to Aqhat. 
Later, Kothar-u-Khasis arrives with a specially crafted bow and arrows 
set for Aqhat.  Daniel and Danatay hold a feast, inviting the god, and 
Daniel presents Aqhat with the bow reminding him to sacrifice the choices 
game to the gods.  When Aqhat is slain, Daniel's daughter Pughat notices 
the eagles and the drought and becomes upset.  Daniel prays that Baal 
might return the rains and travels among the fields coaxing the few 
living plants to grow and wishing that Aqhat were there to help harvest 
them.  Pughat informs him of Aqhat's demise.  Daniel then swears vengence 
upon his son's slayer.  In succession he spies some eagles, Hirgab, and 
Sumul.  He calls upon Baal to break their wings and breast-bones, then he 
searches their insides for Aqhat's remains.  Initially not finding them, 
he asks Baal to restore the eagles and Hirgab.  Finding Aqhat's remains 
within Sumul, he buries him and calls upon Baal to break the bones of any 
eagle that my disturb them and curses the lands near which his son was 
slain.  His court goes into mourning for seven years, at which time 
Daniel dismisses the mourners and burns incense in sacrifice to the 
gods.  Pughat prays to the gods to bless her in her venture and disguises 
herself as Anat, intending to wreck vengence upon those who slew Aqhat. 

Aqhat - The much anticipated child of Daniel and Danatay, Aqhat is 
presented with a bow and arrows set made by Kothar-u-Khasis early in his 
life by his father at a feast.  Daniel reminds him to take the best of 
his kills to the temple for the gods.  At the feast Anat offers Aqhat 
riches and eternal life if he would give her the bow.  When he refuses, 
she promises to deliver vengence upon him should he ever transgress.  
Presumably he fails to offer his best kills to the gods.  Later he 
followes a disguised Anat to Qart-Abilim but presumably thwarts her new 
scheme to aquire his bow and lives there for a time, possibly under the 
favor of Yarikh.  He is left on a mountain and while sitting for a meal 
is attacked by Anat's attendent Yatpan in the form of an eagle, along 
with other birds of prey, and is slain.  Following his death, the land is 
poisoned and there is a period of famine and drought.  Daniel recovers 
his son's remains from the eagle S,umul.  
	Later, Daniel visits the underworld, probably in hopes of recovering 
Aqhat, and there encounters the Rephaim.

Pughat - Daughter of Daniel and Danatay.  When Aqhat is slain, Daniel's 
daughter Pughat notices the eagles and the drought and becomes upset.  
Daniel prays that Baal might return the rains and travels among the 
fields coaxing the few living plants to grow and wishing that Aqhat were 
there to help harvest them.  Pughat encounters Aqhat's servents and 
learns of his demise.  After seven years of Daniel's court mourning, 
Daniel dismisses the mourners and burns incense in sacrifice to the 
gods.  Pughat prays to the gods to bless her in her venture and disguises 
herself as Anat, intending to wreck vengence upon those who slew Aqhat.  
She arrives and meets Yatpan, accepting his wine, and the rest is missing.

Men in general - from a side note (Gibson p. 68) men are considered made 
of 'clay'.

III. What about their cosmology? (Divine geography)
Little is certain about the cosmology of the Canaanites.  While the Ugaritic    
texts tell us of El, Athirat, and Rahmay's creation of the gracious gods, 
for the creation of the universe we must rely on the Greek sources of
Philo of Byblos, Athenaeus, and Damascius, which are thoroughly drenched in 
Greek cosmology.  In general they relate that from gods like chaos, 
ether, air, wind and desire was produced the egg Mot, which was probably   
not the same Mot as found in Ugarit.  The egg was populated with 
creatures who remained motionless until it was opened, whence the sky and 
heavenly bodies were formed.  Later the waters were separated from the
sky, and gods of El's generation were formed.  Additional hints about the       
divine geography gathered from the Ugarit texts are included below:          


Mt. Lel - Where the assembly of the gods meet.  It is El's abode and the 
source of the rivers and two oceans, as well as where those waters meet 
those of the firmament.  It lies 'two layers beneath the wells of the 
earth, three spans beneath its marshes.'  It had been thought to be a 
field and not a mountain.  The mansion there has eight entrances and 
seven chambers.

hmry 'Miry' - Mot's city in the underworld, "where a pit is the throne on 
which he sits, filth the land of his heritage." (Gibson p. 66)

the underworld - 'the place of freedom'.  The Aramaeans believed that the 
souls of the blessed dead ate with Baal-Hadad.

Targhizizi and Tharumagi - the twin mountains which hold the firmament up 
above the earth-circling ocean, thereby bounding the earth.  The entrance 
to the underworld and Shapash's 'grave'.  It is entered by lifting up a 
rock to a wooded height.  The entrance is bounded by a river-shore land 
of pasture and fields known ironicly as "Pleasure" or "Delight".

Ughar or Inbab - the location of Anat's mansion.

Mt. Zephon -  Either the mountain is deified and holy, godlike in 
proportion, or El has a pavilion there.  It has recesses within which 
Baal holds his feast.  Baal had his first house of cedar and brick there, 
as well as his second house of gold, silver, and lapis-lazuli.  

IV. Source material:

Aubet, Maria E. _The_Phoenicians_and_the_West_, Cambridge University
  Press, New York, 1987, 1993.
Bonnefoy, Yves (compiler) _Mythologies_Volume_One_, The University of 
  Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991.
John C.L. Gibson _Canaanite_Myths_and_Legends_, T & T Clark Ltd., 
  Edinburgh, 1977.
S.H.Hooke _Middle_Eastern_Mythology_ , Penguin Books, New York,1963.         
Moscati, Sabatino, _The_World_of_the_Phoenicians_, Frederick A. Praeger, 
  Publishers, New York, 1968.
_Ancient_Near_Eastern_Texts_Relating_to_the_Old_Testament_, ed. James
  Prichard, Princeton University Press, Princetion, 1955.
Sykes, Edgerton _Who's_Who_in_Non-Classical_Mythology_, Oxford University
  Press, New York 1993.

V. Additional material of interest.

M. Coogan _Stories_From_Ancient_Canaan_
Day, John, _Molech:A_God_of_Human_Sacrifice_in_the_Old_Testament_, 
  Cambridge University Press, New York, 1989.
C.H. Gordon _Ugaritic_Literature_, Rome, 1949.  
Hall, H. R. _The_Ancient_History_of_the_Near_East_, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 
  London, 1950.
_The_Ancient_Near_East:_Supplementary_Texts_and_Pictures_Relating_to_
  _the_Old_Testament_, ed. James Pritchard, Princeton University Press, 
  Princeton, 1969.

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