Back to Ethnic Origin, Language and Literature

Literary (of mytho-literary) work

The great cycle of narratives about Baal from Ugarit in its present form is clearly a literary work rather than a myth, it is doubtlessly composed of religiously significant mythic material. While there are Greek and Latin sources such as De Dea Syra ("About the Syrian Goddess") from the 2nd century AD, attributed to Lucian of Samosata, and the section of Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio evangelica ("Preparation for the Gospel"; 4th century AD) that cites extracts from a History of Phoenicia by Philo of Byblos (c. AD 100); Philo himself claimed to be translating the work of an early Phoenician priest, Sanchuniathon (referenced earlier). They are mostly works that deal with religious material and not literary per say. Further, there is not enough material that has survived the centuries of Phoenician history to the present for higher literary criticism. The most outstanding or major literary work is The Baal Cycle which is summarized herewith.

Information supplied by: "http://phoenicia.org