Forgotten Letters – Friday from Ugarit

Episode II

In Ugarit, not everything was poetry. In fact, many tablets did not speak of gentle myths or solemn prayers. They were lists—names, quantities, exchanges. Grain, oil, animals, offerings. Ordinary life pressed into clay.

And it is precisely this that makes them extraordinarily alive.

Those signs were not carved to be remembered, but to organize the present. Yet thousands of years later, it is that very modest present that has crossed time, reminding us that history is not made only of impressive words, but also of repetitions, calculations, and quiet acts of care—of everything that allows a city to keep breathing.

In the royal garden, we know this well: it is not the flower that sustains the plant, but the invisible root and daily care.

The same is true of the mind. Not every thought needs to be extraordinary to be real. Some thoughts are simply necessary: they create order, they nourish, they prepare what comes next. And they are often the ones we do not show.

The tablets of Ugarit also speak to us of silence—of what did not need to be explained because it was shared,of what did not need justification because it belonged to a common rhythm.

Today, instead, we are asked to explain everything. To make every gesture visible, to give a voice even to what would only need time.

But not everything that exists must be exposed. Some things endure better when they remain engraved within, like clay still moist, protected from the sun.

Friday then becomes a different kind of space. Not a day to produce, but to record—to choose what is worth leaving behind.

Just as they did in Ugarit: engraving only what served continuity.

The forgotten letters continue to ask us: what are your invisible lists? Which nameless gestures do you repeat that hold your world together?

And as this Friday comes to a close, remember: not everything that remains must shine.

Some traces survive because they were necessary, not because they sought to be seen.

Next Friday, we will return once more to Ugarit, among broken prayers and repeated formulas, to understand when a word becomes ritual and when ritual becomes memory.

Because what is carved with care, even in silence, always finds a way to cross time.