Various ancient Northwest Semitic texts are also replete with references to terms evidently cognate with "Rephaim" as the dead or dead kings. Lewis (1989) undertakes a detailed study of several enigmatic funerary ritual texts from the ancient coastal city of Ugarit. Lewis concludes that the "“Ugaritic Funerary Text”" provides important evidence for understanding Ugarit's cult of the dead, wherein beings called "rapi'uma", the long dead, and "malakuma", recently dead kings, were invoked in a funeral liturgy, presented with food/drink offerings, and asked to provide blessings for the reign of the current king. The many references to "repha'im" in the Hebrew Bible in contexts involving Sheol and dead spirits strongly suggests that many ancient Israelites imagined the spirits of the dead as playing an active and important role in securing blessings, healing, or other benefits in the lives of the living.