The article deals with the date of Ugaritic letter RS 88.2009. It is generally acknowledged that this text should date back to the last days of Ugarit. But the author points out that it should be dated back to the beginning of the reign of the last known king of Ugarit Ammurapi II, in other words, approximately 30 years before the destruction of Ugarit. Therefore this letter is not connected with the corpus of texts describing the collapse of Ugarit at the beginning of the 12 B.C.

The article reveals the process of state machinery formation state in medieval Norway. The author assorts various categories of the population, who actively participated in the centralization of the country, and analyzes their strong and weak points, designates the purposes they faced, and marks the results of their struggle. While analyzing the problems and obstacles the arising officialdom faced, the author ascertains its role in the processes of the country’s integration and the formation of the early feudal state.