Pughat
Levantine · mortal · late bronze age · Recorded classification
Pughat, 'who shoulders water, who knows the course of the stars', is one of the most vividly drawn women of Levantine narrative literature. After her brother Aqhat's murder she washes and rouges herself, straps on a hero's dagger and sword beneath her garments, and comes at dusk to the tent of the assassin Yatpan, who is plied with wine as the extant text breaks off, on the evident brink of her revenge. She has often been compared with the vengeful and resourceful heroines of later biblical narrative such as Jael and Judith.
Parentage
- parent: Danel
Domains
- vengeance
Powers
- to know the courses of the stars and read the signs of the sky
Epithets
- ṯkmt mymN. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed., 2002 (secondary)
- ydʿt hlk kbkbmBaruch Margalit, The Ugaritic Poem of AQHT, BZAW 182, 1989 (secondary)
Sources
- Pughat is Danel's daughter who, disguising a warrior's gear beneath women's clothing, goes to the camp of her brother Aqhat's killer Yatpan to exact vengeance in the final scene of the Aqhat epic.: Simon B. Parker (ed.), Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, SBL Writings from the Ancient World 9, 1997 (secondary); Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith, Stories from Ancient Canaan, 2nd ed., Westminster John Knox, 2012 (secondary)