Contents, texts and contexts : a contextualist approach to the Ugaritic texts and their cultic vocabulary.

The aim of this study is to formulate and apply a new 'contextualist' approach to the interpretation of the texts from U garit. With a review and critique of mainstream scholarly debate, this study argues that the continued separation of archaeological and textual material has limited the success of attempts to reconstruct U garitic religion. As a development of, and reaction to, the interpretative methods that have been applied to the available source material, this study advocates a holistic approach to the Ugaritic evidence. It examines the distribution of 'cultic vocabulary' that arises in texts recovered from two distinct archaeological contexts-namely, the 'House of the High Priest' and the 'House of the Hurrian Priest'. It involves a systematic search of the Ugaritic corpus for other applications of the cultic vocabulary. The integration of textual and archaeological evidence results in the production of 'topographically sensitive' text references, the analysis of which, it is argued, will allow for a more nuanced understanding of the Ugaritic cult and its workings. The results gathered in the preparation of this study are collated together in the form of a database (a copy of which accompanies the main volume as a CD-ROM). A summary of the database is supplied and a provisional interpretation is given. As an aid to future applications of the contextualist approach, the principles of data interpretation are offered.