Ebla and its Archives: Texts, History, and Society

879 Pages·2015·9.05 MB·English

by  Alfonso Archi

AlfonsoArchi
EblaandItsArchives
Studies in Ancient
Near Eastern Records
General Editor:
Gonzalo Rubio
Editors:
Nicole Brisch, Petra Goedegebuure, Markus Hilgert,
Amélie Kuhrt, Peter Machinist, Piotr Michalowski,
Cécile Michel, Beate Pongratz-Leisten, D. T. Potts,
Kim Ryholt
Volume 7
Alfonso Archi
Ebla and Its
Archives
Texts, History, and Society
DE GRUYTER
ISBN978-1-61451-716-0
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ISSN2161-4415
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Preface
AttheoriginofthestudiesinthisvolumeisthepositiveanswerwhichIgave
to Paolo Matthiae thirty-nine years ago, when he asked me, his colleague at
theUniversityofRome,tojointheArchaeologicalExpeditionatTellMardikh/
Ebla in order to try to understand which of the many statements expressed
regarding the contents of the tablets of Ebla were sound. It was a reckless
answer,because I had no experience ofcuneiformsources ofthat earlyperi-
od.Ipromptlyreceivedsome photos,buttime wasgreatlylimited,because I
hadfirsttofulfillmyobligationtoprepareaKUBvolumeofHittitetabletsat
the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. At that time, my engagement was in
any case not defined at all, and further developments would have depended
on my interest and results, not less than on my endurance to bear a heavy
situation.
Ihavetoexpressmyheartfeltthankstomanypeople,andfirstofallPaolo
Matthiae, who offered me his steady support in those years. The members of
the International Committee for the Study of the Texts of Ebla: Giorgio Buccel-
lati, Pelio Fronzaroli, Paul Garelli, Horst Klengel, Jean-Robert Kupper, Fawzi
Rashid,andinparticularDietzOttoEdzardandEdmondSollberger,generously
gavemetheirconfidence.AdnanBounni,AliAbuAssaf,KassemToueir,Sultan
Muhesen, Abd er-Razak Mu’az, Bassam Jamous and Michel al-Maqdissi, all of
the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums of Damascus, permitted
metoworkdirectlyonthewholetextcollection.
Mywife,StefaniaMazzoni,wasalwaysbesidemeandhostedme,together
withotherphilologistsoftheEblaexpedition,forseveralyearsinherhousein
Saraqeb.
PelioFronzarolihasbeeninalltheseyearsanidealcolleagueandfriend,
offeringmetheprivilegetoexchangeideasandreceiveadvicefromhim.
WithMariaGiovannaBigaandAmaliaCatagnoti,whohaveworkedbeside
meformanyyears,Ihavehadoccasiontodiscussseveralpoints.
Antoine Souleiman and Hamido Hammade, both responsible for the Ebla
tablets in the Archaeological Museum of Aleppo, and who both passed away
tooearlyinrecentyears,aswellasAbdoAsfariandFajarhajMohammed,who
succeeded each other as director of the Archaeological Museum of Idlib, of-
fered me the best conditions for the extraordinarily exciting work of recon-
structingdayafterdaythearchivesofEbla.
This volume is dedicated to them, as also to Faiz, Ma’an, Waji Abeidīn of
Saraqeb, and Shawqi Shaath of Aleppo, who contributed to making Syria my
second,unforgettablehome.
vi Preface
IamverygratefultoGonzaloRubioforhavingproposedthatIcollectsev-
eralofmywritingsonEblainthisvolumeoftheseriesSANERdirectedbyhim,
and to the De Gruyter staff who has assisted me in this enterprise. Gabriella
Spadawasofgreathelpineditingthisvolume.
Rome,July2015 A.A.
Acknowledgments
I thank the following Colleagues, Institutions, and publishers who kindly au-
thorizedthereproductionofarticlespublishedbythem:
AmericanSchoolofOrientalResearch:[21,32]
ArchívOrientální(DrJanFilipsky):[23]
BloomsburyPublishingPlc,London–NewDelhi–NewYork–Sidney:[19]
Brill,Leiden–Boston–Köln:[34,43]
TheBritishInstitutefortheStudyofIraq(MrsLaurenMalvee):[12,16,36]
CDLPress(DrMarkCohen):[15,18]
Prof.DominiqueCharpin,Paris:[24]
WalterDeGruyter,Berlin–Boston:[10,13,50]
Prof.RobertDeutsch,TelAvivUniversity:[22]
Prof.Jean-MarieDurand,Paris:[6,7,27,44,48]
Eisenbrauns,WinonaLake,IND.(MrJimEisenbraun):[4,14,33]
Prof.LewanGordesiani,UniversityofTbilisi:[9]
HarrassowitzVerlag,Wiesbaden:[2,35]
HeidelbergerOrientverlag,Heidelberg(MrsVerenaHug):8
DrMagdalenaKapełuś,UniversityofWarsaw:[47]
Prof.GiovanniP.Lanfranchi,UniversitàdiPadova:[26]
NederlandsInstituutvoorhetNabijeOosten(Prof.JesperEidem):[3,41]
Prof.HansNeumann,OrientalistischeLiteraturzeitung:[40,42]
Prof.SimoParpola,Helsinki:[17]
Peeters,Leuven–Paris–Walpole,MA:[30]
PontificiumInstitutumBiblicum(MrsKatiaPaoletti),Roma:[25,37,38]
SadbergHanımMüsesi,Istanbul(MrsHulyaBilgi):[31]
Prof.ÖnhanTunca,UniversitédeLiège:[28]
UgaritVerlag,Münster(DrKaiMetzler):[20,29,46]
UniversityofChicagoPress:[49]
Dr.CorneliaWunsch,Dresden:[45]
IthankProf.HaraldHauptmann,Heidelberg,andProf.GuillermoAlgaze,San
Diego,CA.,whoauthorizedmetopublishthephotosin[32],respectivelyfigs.
2,3,andfig.5;HirmerFotoarchiv,Berlin,forfig.4.
Thecopyrightforalltheotherphotosandthedrawingsbelongto:Missione
ArcheologicaItalianainSiria,SapienzaUniversitàdiRoma.

Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations xiii
PublicationsofAlfonsoArchiconcerningEbla xvii
Part I. History, Language, and Texts
1 SyriaandMesopotamiaBeforetheAkkadianDynasty:Geopolitical
Relations 3
2 HistoryofSyriaintheThirdMillennium:theWrittenSources 13
3 EblaiteinitsGeographicalandHistoricalContext 32
4 PrepositionsatEbla 51
5 TheArchivesofEbla 77
6 Chronologierelativedesarchivesd’Ébla 93
Part II. Society and Economy
7 LestitresdeenetlugalàÉblaetdescadeauxpourleRoideKiš 123
8 ZurOrganisationderArbeitinEbla 143
9 kíd-sag“Gatekeeper” 154
10 Prices,Workers’WagesandMaintenanceatEbla 158
11 GiftsatEbla 165
12 TheStewardandhisJar 179