Forgotten Letters - Friday from Ugarit

Episode V

In Ugarit, the wind could change direction without warning anyone. The slightest shift in the air was enough for sails to pull differently and for routes to be adjusted by a few degrees—just enough to make landfall somewhere else.

That morning, the harbor awoke beneath a milky light. A ship that had arrived during the night awaited inspection: it carried tin from distant lands and amphorae sealed with dark wax. No one spoke loudly; there was something about journeys too long that commanded respect.

In the eastern warehouse, a scribe older than usual ran his fingers over a tablet still unmarked, yet he did not write. He simply held it in his hands, as one does with something fragile. He had learned that not all news deserves to be inscribed at once; some must first be kept in silence, until they find their proper place among the things that endure.

A young apprentice watched him. He was eager to carve sharp signs, to leave a trace of his own gesture. “If we don’t write it down, it will be lost,” he said softly.

The elder shook his head. “Not everything left unspoken is lost. Sometimes it is preparing.”

Outside, the merchants bargained in measured voices. The value of the tin lay not only in its weight, but in the trust that accompanied it: it came from unknown hands, from seas crossed without guarantees. Every cargo was an act of trust suspended between departure and arrival, an immediate unknowing.

So it is with us. There are words we wish to speak at once, decisions we long to fix in place so we may feel secure. Yet some truths ask to travel within us before taking shape outwardly. If we carve them too soon, we risk inscribing fear in place of wisdom.

Toward evening, at last, the scribe took up his stylus and carved a few essential signs—names, quantities, provenance—yet he left a wider space than necessary, like a pause between two lines. The apprentice noticed.

“Why do you leave it blank?”

“To remember that every story continues,” he replied.

When the sun set, the harbor breathed more slowly. The foreign ship had become part of the landscape, as though it had always been there. What had arrived from afar had found a temporary dwelling.

Next Friday, we will step inside the homes of Ugarit, beyond warehouses and docks, to discover what happens when commerce gives way to domestic memory—and how letters never sent can alter the destiny of those who keep them.

For not everything that travels seeks a market. Some things cross the sea only to teach us how to receive.