Twelve kilometres north of Latakia lie the ruins of Ugarit — ancient Ras Shamra — one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. Ugarit was a Bronze Age city-state that flourished from around 1450 to 1200 BC, when it was destroyed in the general catastrophe that ended the Late Bronze Age civilizations. At its height it was a sophisticated cosmopolitan port, trading with Egypt, Cyprus, the Aegean, and Mesopotamia, and it produced the world's first known alphabet — not a syllabary like Mesopotamian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphs, but a true alphabet where symbols represent individual sounds.
The ruins themselves are atmospheric rather than spectacular: the remains of a royal palace, temples, and merchant houses spread across a low mound above the sea. The best finds — including the cuneiform tablets that revealed the Ugaritic alphabet — are in the National Museum in Damascus and the Latakia Regional Museum. But standing on the tell and looking out over the Mediterranean, you can understand why this was a great trading city for three thousand years. The site is reached by a short drive or taxi from Latakia.