Historiographie - Ethnographie - Onymie

Founding myths and legends survive from the pre-Hellenistic Levant - with the possible exception of the Old Testament - in the form of fragmentary information of various provenance, ranging from onomastics and the structure of royal lists to brief accounts of conquests. Case studies of epigraphic sources from the Early Bronze Age (Ebla) through the Late Bronze Age (Ugaritic) to the Early Iron Age (Arameans, Old Testament, Philistines) reveal the uniform rules that determined the form of these legends as means of ethnic incorporation and political legitimation. That the reflection of these rules could be used by capable authors for their own purposes is evidenced by an analysis of the work of the Ugaritic scribe Ilimilco.