cenni storici - EBLA

EBLA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ebla
54 Km away from Aleppo, lies the excavation site that used to be the capital of an ancient kingdom. Ebla the ancient city found at Tell Mardikh is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Syria.

In 1964 an Italian excavation team began to dig here and discovered this bronze age city. Ebla has been mentioned as one of the cities conquered in 2250 BC by the Akkadians from Mesopotamia under Naram Sin. It has been proved that Ebla was an important powerful kingdom, in the third and second millennia BC. Ebla has been considered something resembling a missing link, which now provides information on a kingdom that had important trading contacts with the Akkadians and Sumerians in Iraq, and north into Anatolia.

Not much is known about the people of this kingdom, although it is thought that the founders are of Amorite descent. Their language is known as Eblaic, and it was recorded on clay tablets in the Akkadian cuneiform. Ebla flourished greatly between 2400 and 2250 BC, as a trading city with a sophisticated economic and social system. It was destroyed by the Akkadians under Naram Sin in 2250 BC, and in 2000 BC was annexed into the Aleppo kingdom of Yamkhad. In 1600 BC it was conquered and heavily damaged by the Hittites. In 1450 BC it is recorded at Karnak by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III as a city that the Egyptians went through on their way to the Euphrates.

An Aramean fortress dating back to the 9th and 8th centuries BC, and other remains from the Persian and Byzantine show that it was still used, although it had lost its fame and was for the most part an abandoned city.

The city was circular and surrounded by a 20 to 30 meter thick wall and had a citadel or acropolis in the center of it. At four points round the city, the wall was perforated by gateways guarded by bastions with towers. One of these gateways is still evident on the southwest side of the city walls. The citadel at the center includes to palaces, the main one is the royal palace on the west side that consists of the royal quarters and an administrative area. There are also three caves below this where some of the royals were buried. The palace archives were found in the southern part of this palace. North of the tell are the remains of an Amorite fortress, which was found under a villa dating back to the Persian and Hellenistic periods.

Most of the artifacts and archives can be found at the Idlib museum.


Ancient city excavated at the site of Tell Mardikh on the River Orontes in Syria. Recent excavations have yielded evidence of the previously unknown language and history of a powerful state of the 3rd millennium BC. Although the site was occupied from the 4th millennium BC onwards the period of its greatest wealth and power was in thc mid 3rd millennium; a large royal palace of this period has yielded an archive of more than 15,000 clay tablets inscribed in the cuneiform script in two languages, Sumerian and the local language, a Semitic tongue now labelled Eblaitc. Work is still continuing on the tablets, but they have already revealed a wealth of information about the economy, political organization and religion of Ebla.

The city was clearly an important commercial centre, exporting woollen cloth, wood and furniture to areas as far flung as Ashur in Mesopotamia and Kanesh in Anatolia. The settlement of this period was destroyed, notably by the Akkadian ruler Naram-Sin but the city was rebuilt and a great palace complex and some wealthy burials of the early 2nd millennium BC have been excavated.

The Ebla texts include many Semitic names which recall those of the Old Testament but extravagant claims of a cult of Yahweh at Ebla and of texts mentioning the biblical patriarchs, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Flood story are without foundation .....


.

An Online Research Center on the History and Theory of Anarchism
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/index.html